


Mockingbird

by CacoPhoniA



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Death, Gore, Happy Ending, Heinous stuck, Little Kisses, M/M, Obsession, Pedophilia, Stalking, au - no sburb session, eventual normal stuff happens, its not all sad and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-12 16:52:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 33,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CacoPhoniA/pseuds/CacoPhoniA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave watches the children and hides in the trees, fearful of scaring them with his horrible wings and talons.</p><p>He loves these children, but must never interact with them.</p><p>Then he sees John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Deformed

Crumbled buildings and grey skies, dusk and scorched trees.  
That is where he belongs, the only color gracing the area a dark, runny red.

His doctor's mask stretches in front of him, said runny color gently dripping onto his black spats and molted feathers at his feet.

These feathers once shined a golden-orange color that left him light and free, like a child's laugh.

Now his feathers drag behind him like a scorched train of a wedding dress. He tucks his talons into the fold of the patchwork velvet suit attatched to his body, disgusted. That's what he is.  
Disgusting.  
Made of leftover parts, hiding a face that is barely there, muscle and sinew rotting amongst yellowing bone.  
He is something only these crows dare to touch. Scavengers.

 

He watches the children with their pretty smiles and tiny hands. The parents take these little miracles for granted, for sure. They sit upon park benches, buried in their electronics and ignoring their own creations, who streak by like falling stars.

He wishes with every inch of his being that he could fly down from his perch in this sycamore, reach out and touch them. Maybe they'd smile when his feathers brushed their rosy cheeks.  
Maybe they'd ignore the dried blood on the end of the beaked mask, the talons crusty with filth and the stench of rotted flesh.  
Maybe they wouldn't scream in terror at his voice that grates like metal.

However,

He is not stupid.

He knows that he would ruin them completely, blacken their flower-and star view of the world. He knows eventually the world shall taint them anyway, but he wants them to live in their false security sunshine as long as possible.

 

Along with the joys of life, like the children, he witnesses the anguish and pain of it as well.

He sits on the sill of an opened window, using the shadow of the late evening to his advantage, and watches a new mother struggle with a tiny, squalling infant.

Her hair, red and unwashed, stands scraggly around her skull like a halo. She is sweaty and flushed, bouncing the child gently in an attempt to comfort it.

Worry and tears lace her eyes; she loves this child.

Her love, however, seems to be less than enough. The infant's face is turning blue, cries growing raspier and gasping, and the young mother's tears streak her face. The infant's face grows deeper in blue, until it stiffens, still and silent.

It is a silence thick as ice, one that this mother shared with the child..

He feels icefire sweep his chest then. The pain of loss never lessens, no matter how many deaths he is witness to.

However, the deahs of children, the little ones so new and innocent, hurt most of them all.

 

He is lonely.

It's a commonplce emotion to him, popping up at random times as he curls himself into his nest.

His nest is filled with broken toys, bits of lost baby's blankes and goose down from bitten pillows. Now, he holds a blue scrap of a fleece blanket to his chest, and the smell of chocolate, grass, and milk wafts up under the beak of his mask. He stares straight ahead into the colorless dusk, caressing the scrap with his long white fingers, careful of his talons.

A child had ince held the while piece of this blanket in their arms, like he does, security and comfort.

Someone had given this blanket to the child, surely. He had simply salvaged it from the burnt ruins of an apartment building one evening, long after the firemen and smoke had cleared from the area. Something inside him broke when he saw it, so he had taken it.

Was he a child once? If he closed his eyes and squeezed them, thinking very hard into the dark his eyelids provided, he could sometimes see bits and pieces of a young man, golden hair and eyes. Gentle, tinkling music echoes in the back of his skull. Blue eyes blink at him.

He thinks these are memories, but isn't sure. Weren't memories supposed to be a happy thing? The ones he sees only make his chest and head hurt.

A chilly wind blows over his wings, loosing a few feathers from them.

He closes his eyes tighter, until the slow, slow thudding of his heart lulls him to sleep.

 

He makes a mistake in people-watching one day. 

The little girl with eyes as blue as the ones in his "memory" was all alone, walking down the sidewalk in the red, orange and gold of the sunset. She was happy and fragile as porcelain, fingers tugging along a purple balloon.

She was innocence incarnate, she was all alone. 

Something was wrong from the start. Anxiety creeps up in his throat like a noose, and his heart flutters. Something is wrong, so wrong.

The source of his prediction creeps from a street corner, pale and thin with grabby hands and cold eyes, staring at this angel with her balloon. 

His eyes were hungry, dark, and wrong.

The stranger sidled up to the young thing, smile of false security pasted on his face, too-personal hands reaching out to grip her thin shoulder.

Panic and bile mingle in his throat, his wings quivering.

He had seen men like this, those that had no right to live in the world where the innocents roamed.

Theu began to walk away together in the dark, alone. Her hesitation was obvious, the man's intent was terribly obvious, and only one word echoed like a bell in his mind.

No.

She began to pull away, backing up a bit and stopping. He can'y hear them, but the jerky movement of his hand pulling her forward clearly states where they're going. She thrashes, shaking her head. He can hear shouting from below, and then, a shrill scream.

The man has hit her, and before common sense could pacify him, he is soaring towards the ground, talons bared, screech released from the cage of his throat.

Red stains the sidewalk below, and the strangers life has been ripped from his body, quicker than a breath.

His talons shake and so do his wings; he shudders in anger and panic, and then relief.

His breathing is ragged, and he stares at the mangled body. It's only when a shuddering gasp sounds throu the air that he realizes that another presence is at his side.

He whips his head in the direction of the sound, and the angel is staring at him, tears and horrible gasps escaping her gaping mouth. Her eyes are blue, so terrified.  
Her face is contorted ina mixture of disgust and horror.

Her little voice screams shrilly, ripping throu her body, and she runs, far into the night.  
He stares at the retreating figure in a state of conplete blankness. He looks down at his talons.

Wandering too close had wronged him, he was no angel. He should not have acted as such.

A mysterious pain in his chest makes him flinch. Perhaps this is regret.

 

Now he carries that blue scrap of blanket in his breast pocket, along with a piece of the girl's purple balloon, popped when he committed his recent act. It's a remeinder of his coming too close; he must never, ever do something like that again. He must always remember his place: the dark.

The two childlike items he holds closest to his heart are the only swatches of color he allows himself to keep.

He still watches the children, but guilt settles in the back of his mind now when he does. They are still miracles of stars and glass, but his fantasies of interaction are shoved into the recesses if his mind, where they can hurt no one else.

He touches the earth in the shade of nightfall, when frost blankets the dried-out grass. It is very cold, but pulling the velvet material of hus jacket around hus shoulders only further tears the material there.

The children leave things behund sometimes, a ball, a little jacket, a baby doll.

This seems to be ine of these instances, for he he finds a thin book perched in the edge of a park bench, dog eared and tattered. A picture of a pretty woman is in the cover, hand in hand with a mangled, furry creature.

In golden letters it reads, Beauty and The Beast.

He should put the book down, he's heard mothers preaching to their young about taking things that din't belong to them. He supposes he should put it back.

However, curiosity gets the best better of him, and he opens the door,

 

The story leaves him confused and lonlier than ever.

"Happily Ever After", the last words in the book.

The Beast and the beautiful woman had fallen in love, and he had returned to his human form. This confused him. Was that the end? There was no more to the story? No, it couldn't be, it was much too easy and sweet.

He supposed children must have some sweetness but to lie to them through fantasies?

It almost sickened him.

He stares at the book with disdain, and wishes his talons could drip ink for him to scribble the truth on thise pages. Happily Every Afterbwas a state that could be achieved. It simply didn't exist.

Hr leaves the book with one of his tarry black feathers inside. He hopes the parent of that child finds it, maybe taking it as a sign of wrongdoing.

 

This new boy's face is young, smiling, and carefree.

His eyes are sapphires, enough so that he wants to pluck them from the child and keep them, holding them close to his chest, like his memory. He wants to take the smile with him, dig his horrid bird-hands into the pale white baby fat of his face, steal the brightness away to keep.

These thoughs disturb him and makes a cold ahiver rumble through his body, making his feathers quake. It disturbs him knowing that deep down, he wants to keep the boy. It's different than seeing the other children, whom he was happy to see and watch, and watching was simply enough.

This boy was too perfect. Eyes too blue, teeth perfectly crooked with the likeness of a jack-o-lantern. Skin all white porcelain, speckled with freckles.

He had heard freckles were angel kisses.

This thought makes hom cringe and hide further in his veil of leaves. These are thoughts he isn't allowed to have, ones dreaming of a companion, especially one this small.

He couldn't give the boy anything of use. He would scare him.  
The boy would miss his parents and friends.  
The boy would cry, and it would break his heart, whatever was left of it.

He doesn't want to hurt anyone, especially this perfect child.

He can't be wishing for things. 

He closes his eyes tightly, covering the holes of his mask for good measure. The heels of his clammy palms, he hopes, are enough to draw the dangerous thoughts back.


	2. Wrong

He will not let these feelings overtake him.

He will not.

He doesn not care how much clawing at his palms it takes, or how many times he must grip the tree he perches in, shredding the bark, to keep himself from swooping down and plucking that child from his play.

His name is John. The name rolls off his tongue so smoothly when he whispers it to himself in the dark of his nest, when he holds the small mitten he'd left behind on a swing. He should not be doing these things, watching this boy so closely and intamately, this John boy.

John. He hears his name when his father calls him back from the park, ready to take their daily walk back to their house, or so he assumes.

He has been good, and has not allowed himself to creep to the house behind them, perhaps overtaking the father along the way and tucking John away into his arms and-

No.  
He must not ever dare to think these things! 

The father was a good one, so much better than the rest of them. Surely, he noticed how his son was the very incarnation of perfection, all pale, rosy skin and smile made of rays of sunshine, threaded together until he was created. This father loves his son fiercely; his eyes, the same sea-sky-bluebell color as John's gives it all away like a photograph.

He glows for his beautiful son, and so does Dave.

This is why he must not touch this child, ever. He is loved, and cherished, and so unlike himself in every way. Why should he steal him away from his life that he is so happy in?

John wouldn't want to live with a creature only written about in a madman's horror tale. He would only want to be a king, which is what that angelic child deserved.

So, no. He will keep his distance, want be damned. He will keep that child at bay if it kills him.

And the sharp, horrible ache that reverbrates throughout his being tell him that yes, this very well be the death if him. 

But he doesn't care, he doesn't care.

He doesn't.

 

He's crying in his nest, and it hurts so very much to cry. His tears may very well be acid, as they sting horribly as they spill down his rotting cheeks. His mouth opens and rasping sobs rack his body, and he hunches in his favorite tree, yanking at the feathery hair by his ears with his talons. He's bleeding there now, and blood trickles onto his already filthy shirt collar. His wings shudder and spread feathers in a grimy halo below his perch. 

He can only squeeze his eyes shut, hoping for this agony to end. He hasn't cried in months, maybe years, only when the migraines had arrived. Those migraines had nearly killed him, feeling like little worms eating away at his head.

All he could do was sit and hold his head, cawing softly as pretty and ugly pictures spiraled through his mind. Golden eyes, blue eyes all in pretty little patterns as they hurt him. Pretty words that told him lies and made the pain so much more intense.

He remembers bloody tears running down the bridge of his deteriorating nose under the mask.   
Now, he notices the same red-tinted liquid spilling from his tear ducts, and he winces.

Crying will only make his situation worse, he knows.   
Crying will not lead the John boy to his side, will not let those tiny hands wrap themselves around his hunching form. 

He knows why he cries. He cries of this loneliness that has plagued him for so long, and he cries of want.

God, how he wants the boy.

It's worse everyday he sees him and watches him play with his friends. He finds himself disregarding the feelings of the father and of the boy himself. Caring isn't a possibility anymore. He can only want, like the demon he always knew he was.

Little hands of children used to be his dreams. Smiling faces and tinkling laughter like music boxes. He dreamed of handing them flowers and of their sweet childish kisses in his cheeks. Chubby arms wrapped themselves around his waist and squeezed.

It was enough, and the dreams left him warm.

Now, he has what he would categorize as nightmares.

John is always there, their fingers entwined together and his sharp little chin dug into his shoulder. He is picking John up, and the boy pays no mind to his awful appearance in the slightest. He only looks up at Dave in a sick sickingly sweet gaze. John lifts his mask to kiss his scarred lips, and Dave does not mind. Feathers flutter down in black-edged spirals as they fall to the ground.

What a beautiful, wonderful dream. Perfection and paradise.

That is, until he wakes up. These dreams torment him in such a horrible way.  
He is horrible, he is a monster. Even more of a monster than he was born as.

He is just as bad as that man that had wanted to take the innocence of that little girl.   
He should not feel romantic feelings for a child of such an age.

...Was this romantic? He had seen people fufilling their "romantic" intentions before, holding each other with vice-grips, their lips mashing in such a vulgar way, tongues releasing saliva and a matter of other bodily fluids that were so unappealing.

He didn't want this from John. He simply wanted recognition, to hold the child's hand, to hold him and smell the summer grass smell of his hair. He wanted those eyes never to be startled in fear from him, his long eyelashes splayed out like spider's legs. Not once had he hoped for John to experience a negative emotion.  
No, he would trake all of those bothersome emotions away!

But no, he couldn't. He was a hellish winged...thing.  
A thing pining after a human boy who never knew he existed in the slightest.

He wanted to protect him, above all, and to claim him at the same time.

He began to cry harder, despite muffling most of it at the beginning. He was so, so horrible.  
If only he hadn't been so weak.

He was an awful demon who deserved not an angel, but the flames of Hell and he knew it. If only suicide was an option.

He has tried it before. Raking his claws across his mottled skin until blood gushed out, tried falling from buildings in hopes of splatting in the ground like an egg.  
But, to no avail.

Perhaps this was Hell.

Yes, it must be. Being held back from the things he's wanted most, his appearance being so painful and terrifying to an extreme. Hell, yes.

Wasn't Lucifer the most beautiful fallen angel?

Ah yes, that was true. If it was so, and this indeed was Hell, then John must be his Lucifer, tormenting him from a distance.

It was torture, and he supposed he deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, sorry. I'm a bit out of practice with writing gore and sich, mostly because I started this in December...aha...
> 
> The next update may take a bit longer than usual, I'm sorry!
> 
> Also, I'm surprised at how much positive feedback I've gotten! Thank you.


	3. Fathers

Time goes by, and John grows, but Dave does not.  
He watches John get older, but remains a child nonetheless.

Dave has kept his distance, despite his feelings that plague him. He has been good, but fears if he'll be able to continue doing so or not,

Despite this, the years go by without incident, and he can feel himself crumbling away with each passing day.  
The loneliness is something he could've dealt with years ago, but as he watches John--the angel, as he's dubbed him--grow up, he finds it so much harder to stay away. Self-control was something he was not born to have in the beginning. It was difficult. Every day he felt the ache in his chest grow in a way that he'd seen disease spread in the patients in the hospitals.   
He'd feel better for a bit, if he stayed away from John, but he always had to come back to quell the ache .

He simply had to return to watch his lovely angel. To watch him sleep, read, or simply breathe. Only then, when he was watching John, did the pain go away. Only then did he forget his damned heavy wings that hurt constantly, and the rotting skin hanging down under his mask.

In a way he felt much like the small children he used to watch when John had been their age. He is impatient, fidgety, and every so often he feels his lips turn up in the unfamiliar shadow of a smile. His fingers reach for what he can't touch.  
Nowadays, he finds himself with no time to watch those children. He's busy watching John.

 

He'd witnessed his seventh birthday, when his Dad had made him a cake with a Tonka truck on it, and when John had begrudgingly ate it with two of his closest friends. When the blue icing had stuck to his upper lip he'd wanted to reach into the room, to thumb it away.  
However, he refrained from doing so, hands shaking and a cold sweat on his forehead.

After all, his Dad was already suspicious.

John's father was a man that had been overly protective to a point, so that even now, when John was nine, he stll did not venture much farther than school and his neighborhood without adult supervision. Often he'd peered out of the windows all hours of the night, turning on porch lights and lighting the candles he kept on the mantle in the living room.

There he'd sit, worry wrinkles weighing the skin on his forehead and cheeks. He'd sip black coffee in an old leather armchair that Dave had seen him sit in as the years went by, staring out the windows at the black of the night. Of course Dave would be nearby, glued to the outside wall and watching him just as carefully. Risking going up to see John would alert his Dad of his movement.

Dave often had to dodge his all-knowing glance by rushing into the shadows or the tree in their front yard, folding his ragged wings, hoping they wouldn't shed feathers, and if they did, hoping they'd look like leaves in the darkness.

Dad would check on his son in the early hours of each day, two or three a.m, smoothing John's bangs back while glancing with hard eyes at his window. He'd stay there, glancing back and forth from a sleeping John to the window, for about twenty minutes each time, then kissing John's forehead and leaving the door cracked as he left. When he did that, a cold sweat would shudder its way onto Dave's remaining skin. 

John's father would always glance back at the window, confusion and something predatory that Dave couldn't name in his eyes.   
This normally gentle father had the look of a beast, all-knowing and enraged.

 

He knew, and it scared Dave.  
It scared him because they could leave, and he wasn't sure if he could follow them.

 

Another thing: he wasn't sure if he'd let them.

He would not care if John's father left. The father could throw himself off of a cliff and Dave wouldn't care in the least. 

It was John that was the problem.

Dave knew that if they made preparations to move away, somewhere else, then he would take John. It wasn't something he had a choice over; he would do it. He didn't want to, but he did at the same time. 

His self-control had waned to the extreme over time, and he knew that once they made the desicion to move, he'd throw any remaining self-control to the wind.

John wouldn't agree, of course. He'd probably scream and struggle. Those vivid blue eys would gather tears and pool over down his cheeks. They'd go from bright and vivacious to terrified and sad. Dave would not be able to comfort him, because after all, who would willilngly leave with a winged monster ludiike himself? 

Also, if he managed to successfully take John away, John might escape somehow. He might run away.  
Of course his escape would kill him, but something else would be much worse,

John might take his own life to get away from Dave.

If John died, he would too. This, he'd decided a long time ago. If John reached Heaven  
(he would definitely, definitely go to Heaven, the angel), then he might just have to follow him until his own descent into Hell.

He wouldn't let him wander alone into the dark, or light, for that matter.

He'd stay with John and be loyal, even in death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but the next one ahould be longer.  
> Also we shall advance in this plotline.
> 
> We'll see, hm?


	4. Feather

John stares down at his hands, rolling the feather over and over in his hands. 

It's not like any birds' feather he's ever seen, all black and crusty, and the end quill is flaking off into his hand, literally crumbling.   
It's so weird, but he likes it a lot, and gets up to set it next to the shelf of harlequin dolls his Dad had set up there a few days ago. He makes a face at one of them, setting the feather up in front of it.

At least something cool was there now.

 

It'd been at night when he found it, of all times. About three in the morning to be exact. His Dad had already been in the room, he knew, because his door was cracked open and the hall closet light was on, even though Dad knew that John hated it when he did that.

He always woke up when his Dad came in, but he never gave it away. It made him feel safe when his Dad would smooth his hand across his hair and forehead, and he could smell the musky scent of tobacco lingering there. John always wondered why he stayed there for so long, and when he cracked one eye open to look at Dad, why he stared out of the window for such a long time.

He always looked so angry, but maybe it was just the way the shadows fell on his face, making his brow appear too heavy, his mouth frowning a bit too much.

But John payed it no mind. His Dad was a little weird.

He'd looked over at his clock, finding that the electronic numbers switched to three a.m. as soon as he'd looked over. He remembered that he'd smiled, thinking it was lucky.   
John had layed there, pinching the fabric of his blanket between his fingers, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars he'd glued to his ceiling. Sleep was evading him, and he felt wide awake. He wondered if he should wake up his Dad or not, but decided against it.

His Dad had looked rather tired lately, wrinkles sagging his forehead and drowning his usual smile lines. His usually cheery eyes were no longer snapping, but rather sharp, analysing things a little too long. 

Sighing, the boy turned over, staring out his window. Dad had left the blinds open for once, and John could see the moon and a few stars and the large oak tree in the front yard. The wind rustled a few leaves, the house so silent that he could hear the light whooshing sound of the wind and the paper-crumbly sound of the leaves. A few of them spiraled down and out of sight.  
He thought of smoke for some reason, like the swirly kind that flowed out of his Dad's pipe in the evenings. He felt the safe feeling pass over him again, and he snuggled into his blanket, still looking out at the tree.

Eyes growing heavy, he continued staring out of the window until the sharp edges of the window sill grew blurry. He blinked once, twice, his eyes unable to open after the second time.  
The soft images of coming sleep made the room seem to spin, and his mouth dropped open a bit as he began to fall asleep. He thought he could faintly hear a tapping, but dismissed it. 

The trapping grew a bit louder, and he scowled sleepily, pulling his blanket up over his chin. It grew louder and louder, until a loud thump sounded through the room.

John sat up, his heart fluttering in his chest as he looked around, settling his frantic gaze on the window. The screen was ripped, and he could hear a faint flapping in the distance. The tree was trembling as if someone had shaken it with all of their might.

Something fluttered on the outside sill, caught in the screen.

John stared for a long moment, listening for his Dad. He expected him to come running up the stairs anytime, and if he didn't, John knew that he should call him. He'd been warned countless times about bad people that took kids away forever, people who would do extremely horrible things to kids like himself.  
His heartbeat picked up, and he stared out of the window, waiting for something to pop up, like in the movies he wasn't allowed to watch.

When his Dad hadn't come up the stairs, and nothing had jumped out with a knife or gun, John carefully scooted to the edge of his bed, gingerly placing one foot on the ground . His eyes never left the window, watching the damaged screen ripple as a gust of wind hit it.  
He stood, crouching a bit as he moved towards the window. His hands groped out to touch the wall as he leaned to look out of the window.

To the right was the tree. To the left, his yard.  
Nothing out of the ordinary, except the large feather lightly hanging in the window screen. 

He stared at it for a moment before opening the window, dislodging the feather, gingerly holding it in his hands. Some type of viscous liquid was dripping off the quill, and it smelled faintly of charred wood. He shut the window with one hand, making sure to lock the window.

 

-

 

"I dunno, Rose. It was so weird!"

John stares at his friend Rose Lalonde as she devours the latest Harry Potter book, her lipsticked lips pursed but pleasantly turned up. Personally, he thought she was a bit young for makeup, but it was none if his business.

The feather, however, was. And if Rose was good at anything, it was being in other people's business. Her experience with anything weird was also helpful in this instance.

"John, maybe you just had a dream."

He sighs. "No, I have the feather to prove it! See?"  
He reaches into his backpack, fishing out the decaying feather from a plastic bag, waving it in front of her. She looks up, gingerly taking it with the tips of her fingers. Placing the book down, she turns it around a few times, examining it.

"It looks like a crow feather. An old crow feather, but it's all the same."

"Do crows even live around here?"

"No, they aren't indegenous to this area, but one may have wandered into your window in confusion."

John makes a face at her, bringing a hand up under his chin.

"I don't think a ten-year-old should know so many big words."

She smiles as she hands John back the feather, going back to her book. She licks a finger before turning a page, her eyes not quite focusing on the words there. Her eyes look rather clouded to John, and he knows her wheels are turning.

"John, you said it ripped the screen in your window?"

"Yeah."

"How large do crows get?"

"You're the smart one, not me."

"Well, how large was the ripped portion?"

"Um. Well, it like ripped the screen almost completely off, and my window is pretty big!"  
She hums, staring over the top of her book. She blinks a few times, eerily silent as she ponders this. It makes John a little uncomfortable when she does this, but Rose was Rose. She had her ways.

Tapping one finger on the top of her book, her eyes come unclouded, and she returns to her reading.

"A big crow then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was awful. It's hard writing in the POV of a nine-year old.  
> I like little Rose to sounr like a dictionary. Dunno why.
> 
> Also, sorry it's so short again.  
> Anyway, the plot thickens! Somewhat.


	5. Excursion

He had closed those perfect pale fingers around his rather gruesome feather, and he had kept it.

He had kept a rotting piece of him, and the residue of his being was now soaked into the fingertips of John. John may have thrown it away, or tucked it away somewhere no one could see, but it did not matter in the very least. 

It was as if John had reached out and stroked his arm, the euphoria Dave was feeling as he lay in his nest, staring at the sky. He closes his eyes, talons gripping the decaying material of his nest, and listened to the hollow thump of his heart in his chest. For the first time in a very long time, his heart seems to hammer and thud on the inside of his ribs. Dave sighs, the rank breath pushing back into his own nostrils due to his mask, and he recalls the experience.

Fear had driven him away from the house, as John's father had grown much more daring in his attempts to keep Dave away. Of course, he did not know what Dave was or what he looked like, but he had guessed by now that someting unnatural and quite wrong was stalking their home.  
He knew that Dave was terrified of being found out, and would often shine flashlights around the gutters and roof of the house, hanging out of a window. Midnight strolls had also become a pasttime of his, and often they'd exceed two hours or more.

That night had been one of those nights, where the father seemed more determined and angry than the previous evening, if possible. He had already done his routine check on John, and shortly afterwards John had woken up, causing Dave to surge back into the tree, wrapping his wings around him.

He watched John as he'd smiled at the glowing numbers on his clock, and he'd grown distracted with the brightness of John's smile, illuminated by the glow of his starry night light.   
Dave had felt the corners of his own mouth turn up at the sight, and he had forgotten that he was hiding in a tree, and instead immersed himself in John's sleepy smile, and the way his beautiful eyes looked all around the room, and out the window.

He fantasised that John was looking and smiling at him, and this fantasy had been his mistake.

The familiar slam of the front door startled Dave, and he'd stupidly stumbled forward, one of his wings grating painfully against the screen of John's window. The resulting sound startled him even further, and he'd taken off upwards, another stupid move.

He remembered the moon blinding him as he flew higher, and he'd looked back at the house.

 

Lo and behold, John had opened his window, and Dave witnessed him taking the feather. If it hadn't been for his natural instinct to beat his wings to fly even higher, he very well may have fallen out of the sky with his surprise.

Now, he lays here, the very next evening, feeling absolute elation rush through his veins. It's so foreign; he honestly can't remember the last time he's ever felt it, or if he had actually ever experienced the emotion before, as dramatic as it seems. He rolls onto his side, staring at the little blue scrap of blanket that he's wedged into the edge of his nest. 

Blue. What a lovely color.  
Like John's eyes.

His cheeks hurt, and he remembers that he had been smiling.

 

 

It's very, very late, or should he say early, when he returns to the Egbert residence that night. The lights in the house are off; it seems the father has given up on searching for Dave tonight, and he's relieved. Now he can watch John without any problems arising.

 

As quietly as he can manage, he drifts down to the regular perch: a protruding branch, the leaves brushing the side of the house nearest to John's window. He settles quietly there, his talons gripping rough bark as he balances there.

John has opened his blinds tonight, so that he can clearly see the boy's back, covered by a blanket. He breathes slowly and his unruly hair moves with him. His foot pokes out from underneath his blanket, and it twitches in his sleep. 

John shifts, and the blanket slips down his shoulder. Dave's taloned fingers twitch, wanting to pull the blanket back up to his neck, and maybe brush away the fine hairs at the nape of his neck.  
He shakes his head, remembering why he was here again.

 

Reaching back to his wings, he pinches a feather between his thumb and forefinger, plucking it off with a quick yank. He winces, bringing it in front of him to stare at it.

It's disgusting, honestly. Bits of decayed flesh drip off the quill, the feather is greasy and smells of all things burnt. Blood drips onto his gloved palm.

Why would John take this? It wasn't worth keeping; he could've taken any feather from the countless crows that reside in this town. Besides that, there were better things to keep, like flowers and leaves. Shells or rocks.  
Definitely not a rotting feather from a creature like him, who really should have been dead ages ago. He frowns, glancing at the window. 

John is still sleeping as peacefully as ever, hopefully dreaming of things as beautiful as he is.

Honestly, he shouldn't have the tiniest scrap of hope. John most likely had thrown away the feather, had probably not given it a second thought.

Still, he had to try. 

 

He leans forward, finding the rip that he had created yesterday, and inserts the quill into it, making sure it was secure. A quick glance at John; the boy is still sleeping. Quickly, before he loses his nerve, he raps his knuckles on the window rather loudly, three times.

Wasting no time, he moves back into his veil of leaves, curling up and staying as still as he can. John has shifted in his sleep, and he feels his heart jump. 

There.

John has turned around completely, leaning on one elbow to look sleepily at the window. He squints, scrunching up his nose cutely. His buckteeth are showcased as he yawns and rises, his feeth brushing the floor.  
He leans forward to squint at the window again, and Dave wonders why he doesn't put on his glasses.

He feels his heart crash in his chest when John gets up conpletely, walking towards the window a bit more quickly than what would be normal for one that had recently woken up. John stares at the feather in the window, and opens it. Dave tries to keep his breath silent, or better yet, not breathe at all.

He watches as John's face lights up with a little smile, and with gentle fingers he takes the feather, closing the window with his other hand. He walks to a little shelf, which holds many harlequin dolls. If Dave looks closely, he can see his feather from the previous night, nestled between two dolls.

 

John places the feather on top of the other one, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah, I'm so sorry this took so long to update!!!  
> And it's so short. vnv
> 
> I'm sorry, currently I'm planning each chapter as well as I can; I had some trouble with this one.
> 
> Sorry for any typos/etc.


	6. Questions

"Rose!"

John comes running into his classroom Monday morning, brandishing a feather high in the air as he runs towards Rose Lalonde, who sits quietly in her usual seat, scribbling something on a squiddle-printed notebook.   
Shutting the notebook, she looks up and smiles, brushing her blonde bangs out if her face.

"Good morning, John. Is that another feather?"

She quirks a brow when he nods, placing it gingerly on her desk. She looks at the feather, examining the quill and the remeinder of it just as she had the previous one. It seemed that John had been finding crow feathers in his window ever since the first night he'd recieved one.   
He'd been very excited when he found the second one, and now it seemed that John had been finding them every day this week. 

Every day he would run in, feather held high, and give it to Rose to examine.

"It looks the same, albeit a little bigger than before. John, why do you keep showing me these feathers?"

"Well, I dunno. It's so weird! And you're weird, so-"

"I'm weird?"

"I didn't mean it in a bad way. You just have a lot of unusual stuff at your house, is all."

She smiles and nods, tucking a hand under her chin as she looks up at him.  
"That is true, but honestly there isn't much unusual about these feathers, other that you find one every night."

He huffs, sitting on the top of her desk, careful not to squish the feather. 

"But Rose, you don't understand! It's like...I dunno, somone's leaving them there every night. Why would a crow crash into my window anyway?"

"John, why would someone leave feathers in your window each night?"

"I don't know!"

Rose sighs, looking down at the feather again, a bit more closely. Something seemed to be flaking off of the quill, and the feather was greasy and matted. The quill was a yellow-brown color.

"From the looks of it, this may be a sick crow. Just look here."

She points at the crusted quill, and John looks closer.

"Why would it be sick?"

"Well, this feather doesn't look healthy at all. It looks like it was decaying when it was dislodged."

She picks it up, touching the feathery part.

"See, the quill seems to have dried blood at the bottom, and it's not exactly strong-looking."

"Hm. I guess you're right. But why would a sick crow crash into my window every night?"

"It's beyond me. Now John, class is starting. Get your butt off my desk."

She gives him a little push and he giggles, taking the feather back and walking to his seat.

 

 

John decides to stop bothering Rose about the feathers after that day, even though she seems pretty interested in them.   
She didn't have much information that could help him with the feathers, so he didn't really see much point in asking her about them anymore.

Instead, he turns to his dad for information.

After all, it could be one of his dad's many pranks that he played on John throghout the years. 

 

"Dad, my window screen's still ripped, right?"

His dad is baking a cake (John wrinkles his nose at the familiar Betty Crocker box) when John asks this, and his back goes a little rigid as the question rings in the air. He takes off his ever present fedora with a flour-covered hand, placing it next to the carton of eggs on the counter.

His salt-and-pepper hair has traces of flour in it when he runs a work-worn hand through his hair.

"I wasn't aware that your screen was ripped, John."

"Oh. Well, it is. I think a bird crashed into it and ripped it or something."

"A bird, huh?"

John nods, watching Dad's hands methodically sift through the flour in the mixing bowl in front of him. He's forgotten to take off his watch again.

"Mmhmm. It's weird, because I've been finding feathers in the little rip."

Now his dad's hands stop completely in the bowl, his already ramrod straight back nearly bristling, reminding John of those cats you see on Halloween.

"What...Kind of feathers, John?"

His clipped tone confuses John a bit, and he couldn't imagine why his dad would grow so tense at the mention of bird feathers. Still, he better not question it. He's said it before and will say it again. His dad was weird.

"I asked Rose, and she said they were crow feathers."

His dad went back to sifting the flour, more slowly this time. He doesn't look at the bowl, but sort of looks past it, and John gets even more confused.

"Hm. Well, I'll fix the window tomorrow."

"Okay."

"And John?"

"Yeah?"

His dad looks back at him, that strange worry wrinkle settled between his eyebrows. John wants to reach out and smooth it away, ask why he looks so worried. 

"Don't take those feathers anymore, okay?"  
Although he wants to object, his dad looks much to serious to put forth any argument. His blue eyes are too serious, and it scares John a bit. 

Why does his dad look so scared?

He nods.

"Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems that I can't write a long chapter to save my life.
> 
> Anyway, here it is.


	7. Watched

The elder Egbert had his suspicions confirmed.

Someone was indeed watching his son.

Or something, really.

He'd seen it, stalking their house in the shadows, a white beak revealing itself everytime it would step too far into the light. It would skitter away, then, farther into the dark to avoid being further seen, but Dad knew.  
He had seen the thing perched in their tree and beside John's window, and honestly he had thought of shooting the thing down, but couldn't bring himself to.

That was what he didn't understand himself.

He couldn't bring himself to actually harm the thing to keep it away. 

Any other sane person wouldn't hesistate to kill whatever creature that was stalking their house, or call the police, but Dad couldn't do it.  
He'd certainly tried, that was for sure.

Dad had held the phone in his hand, fingers positioned over the numbers 9-1-1, ready to call. The thing was, what could you tell the police in this situation?

"Something non-human is stalking my son, can you come shoot it down?"

It'd be dissmissed for an inebriated call, and be ignored. Besides, the thing listened, that he knew. Surely at the mention of the police it would fly away to wherever it went during the day, and leave no traces.

He'd sat in his recliner until four in the morning every night, memorizing this creature's patterns, just as it had done to them. He'd stayed up and stared at the fireplace, ine ear turned outside and the other towards John's room, listening for anything out of the ordinary.

The night would begin like this:

At eight p.m, the dishes were washed and John was brushing his teeth. Dad would begin his preparations for his nightly watch, including pulling out his army-grade binoculars to scan the night sky.

At nine, John was in bed, already asleep. He had always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type of boy. Dad would smile as he thought of this, settling the rifle he knew he wouldn't use under his arm. Still, it never hurt to be careful.  
The unsettling noises of the otherwordly creature would start up, the rustling of wings outside the window. He'd settle into his chair, staring at the fireplace.

Ten. The thing was still prowling all corners of the house, and occasionally it would peeking into a window, it's face almost illuminated. Then it would dart away, as usual. 

Eleven-Midnight, Dad would grow tired, thinking of how he had work in the morning. His mind would wander just the slightest, and then he'd hear the scratching if talons against the house, breaking hi out of his reverie. His brow would furrow, and will stay that way until the morning.

One a.m remined uneventful, and at two Dad would rise to begin pacing each window, binoculars in hand. Any unusual noise and the binoculars would be up on his eyes, and he'd be staring out the window with them, everything zoomed in. Occasionally he'd see a glance of the creature, but it would mostly be the shoulder of a tattered suit, or the tuft of feathers in a crest of a wing.

At three he'd make hus routine trip upstairs to John's room, and every night it was the same. He'd turn on the hall closet or bathroom light, open the door to John's room and walk over to his son. He'd smile briefly as he watched him sleep.  
He looked more and more like his mother each passing day, from the long eyelashes and unruly black hair, the glowing eyes.   
Then, the scratching on the window would begin, and he'd look up sharply, just missing sharp claws grazing the window in a near-tender movement.

He felt his mouth turn down into a mean almost-grimace, and he would do the same as he always did; brush away John's bangs from his forehead possesively, glaring with a fire that he could feel bubbling up behind his eyes, out of the window.  
Still watching the window, he'd kiss John's forehead and leave, keeping the door cracked open.

Four a.m, he'd begrudgingly get into bed, ears turned on and mind turned off. He faintly heard wings flapping in the distance.

 

 

Now, John had told him about the collection of feathers, and the ripped window screen.

On his day off, when John was at school, he walks up the stairs and into John's room, replacement screen in his arms. He glances at John's walls and shelves, spotting the odd little stack of feathers, right next to the blue harlequin doll he'd given him when he was a baby.  
He puts the screen next to the bed, picking up one of the feathers.

 

Crow feathers, it seemed. Very large crow feathers, and thin ones at that. He wrinkled his nose at the stench of them, something burnt and coppery.

 

He glances at the pile. There are about seven of them, one for each day of the week, and he notes how carefully they're wrapped, a red piece of yarn tied in a bow, joining the quills together. The knot is a little loose now, and he slips the feather back into it, tightening the yarn.

 

He looks at the ripped screen and squints.

Was this creature really leaving the feathers, or was it accidental?

Also, if it wanted to cause them harm, like he had suspected, wouldn't the thing have ripped the screen off already in an attempt to get inside?

He picks up the new screen again and walks over to the window to examine it. The rip wasn't big, and it looked accidental. A deliberate rip would have pulled the screen down and wider, creating a bigger hole.   
Instead, it was a short opening, going downwards, and very thin, just thin enough to slip something through, like a feather.

What appeared to be going on was nothing harmful in the least, and he felt a bit of relief at that thought.

Whatever it was, it didn't seem to want to hurt them.

 

Still, he did not like being watched.  
He especially didn't like his son being watched as closely as he was. 

 

He opened the window, swiftly removing the screen.

 

He couldn't afford to take any chances, especially with John on the line. Even if the thing wasn't going to hurt them, or so he thought, he would continue to be cautious.

 

He replaces the screen, walking back downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that each chapter is probably going to be this short with each update. I plan them long, but they end up only a thousand words each.
> 
> Anyway, Dadbert's view on things.
> 
> The plot should pick up soon.


	8. Contact

As expected, the older of the Egberts had fixed the window, and even reinforced it, so that Dave couldn't rip it with his talons, even if he tried very hard to do so. The wiring was very thick.

Now he sits on his usual branch outside of the household, crouched in front of the window. It's the middle of the night once again, and John is asleep, this time facing the window.  
Dad seems to have been calmer in his nightly watch, for once not glued to the window with binoculars. Instead, he's reading a large book with rather whimsival-looking letters on the front, settled comfprtably in front of the fireplace.

Dave finds it rather odd that he isn't watching, but lets it settle at the back of his mind.

Right now he's trying to summon up any courage he has.

You see, Dave had grown rather bored of exchanging his feathers with John.  
At first, he had seen it as a form of contact, but as the weeks went by, Dave began to realize that no real contact was being established at all. John was simply removing feathers from his window, and he had thought it was from a crow, not Dave.

To put it bluntly, John still didn't kniw that he exists.  
This fact bothered Dave to the point of almost being angry.  
No, he was angry.

After all, he was risking so much to be here. His own life, and even John's.  
He loved John enough to make his chest hurt, enough that he never slept anymore. He spent his nights imagining pale fingers carding through his hair, blue eyes sleepily blinking at him, cute oversized buckteeth on display in a sunny smile.  
This was exactly the problem.

He's grown much, much more daring as of late. The feathers were a big step that he had never imagined taking, and yet had with no qualms. This fact scared him more tuan a little.

His angry thoughts scared him.

He knew John should never see him, and if he did, would probably never love him. Definitely never as much as Dave loved John.

Even if he knew this, he was angry. 

Why should John be kept away from him, just out of reach like this?  
If Dave tried hard enough, he could break through that damn window that acted as a barrier, and take John away with him. No, instead he struggled to keep away, with John dangling in front of him, teasing him in a way.

The unfairness of it all enraged him, and this is why he's gathering up courage.

Whether he knew it was wrong or not, he would let John see him. He had to.  
It was driving him absolutely mad, not being able to shower affection and praise and all things positive to John. He wanted just to reach out and graze those perfect lips with his fingers, but so gently, so as not to hurt or cut them.  
He was sure John would smile at him, and pretty pink would bloom across his nose and cheeks.

Tonight he would attempt to establish some contact with John, even if it wasn't physical. As long as John knew it was him, that was all that mattered.

 

Now he inches closer to the window, glancing up at the switch-lock that lay on the inside of the window. It was open, unlocked, but he would not lift the window up and open it.  
No, that was too soon.

All he needed was for John to glance at him and see him.  
Quickly, of course.  
He won't stay long, for John's sake. He'd fly away as quick as he possibly could. Frightening him on the first night of his sight wouldn't do at all.

 

John is still sleeping, but fitfully so, tossing a bit and moving his head back and forth in his sleep. His fingers gently grip the blanket.

This is perfect, as he needs to wake up John as quietly as possible, so he can avoid the older Egbert if knowing what was going on.

Hesitating more than once, Dave lifts his taloned hand to the window, gently resting it on the outside screen. His talons make a quiet click sound as he does so, and he lets his hand rest there against the chilly screen and glass, feeling his heart thump up and up, until it seemed to reat in his throat.

John has turned completely on his side to face the window, and his two perfect eyebrows are furrowed. Dave wants to reach out and smooth the wrinkle there that looks so much like his father's own worried expression.

Gently, Dave drums his fingers aginst the glass.

John doesn't stir, and Dave fidgets a bit in slight annoyance, tapping a bit harder.  
There.  
John scowls cutely at the small sound, and the blanket falls down his shoulders. Dave feels the corner of his mouth turn up a bit at the motion, and he drums his fingers with much more force, tapping quickly. 

John shakes his head a bit and nuzzles his pillow. His eyes squint and blink, and Dave's stomach makes an odd lurching movement that feels a bit like vomiting, except it's pleasant. John blinks his eyes open, yawning a little.

Dave sucks in a breath and taps three more times, nearly pressed up against the window.

John, hearing the tapping, looks around sleepily, first at his door and then in barious corners of the room. He looks vaguely confused.  
Dave continies making the sound, and finally John glances over at the window, squinting his pretty blue eyes.

 

Dave is silent as John looks at him, mouth opening slightly as he stares.

His mouth appears to be talking, but no words are coming out. He watches as John slams one hand down on the mattress, the other shoving his glasses onto his face. When they're on, John leans forward, jaw opening more as he stares.

It's something confused and intense.  
He looks scared, but unbelieving.

Dave feels his stomach lurch again, this time in a more negative way as John simply gapes at him. He knew that he was hideous, and at least it was confirmed, now.

 

After counting thirty seconds in his head, Dave notices that John isn't moving at all. His mouth has closed, but his eyes are still wide like a porcelian doll's, dark eyelashes casting shadows in the dull moonlight.  
He still looks scared, and Dave decides that now is the time to leave.

 

He turns to go, his stomach doing all sorts of crazy things that he'd read about in books before. He feels more sad than anything, and his feathers swell and ruffle themselves. However, something stops him.

He turns around again, placing his hand firmly against the screen and glass, palms making a cloudy imprint on the window as he does. He stares back at John, watching as the boy looks back.  
Now John looks less scared, but more dazed.

He stares at Dave's hand before letting his eyes dart around to observe Dave quickly.  
Dave notices that John's eyes settle on his wings more than anything, and the worry wrinkle in between his eyebrows begins to unclench a bit.

Yes, please calm down.

John looks back at Dave's face--well, mask-- and breathes in rather shakily, the action sounding very wet, as if something was at the back of John's throat. His eyes flash to the small pile of feathers on his shelf, then back to Dave.

His wings involuntarily ruffle at the look, and Dave nods.

John swallows and opens his mouth again, looking very confused once again. 

Then, his hand, knuckles white as he clenches his blanket, slowly unravels itself from the cloth. He shakily raises it, and Dave notes the trembling in his fingers. His eyes blink prettily, and little wet spots cling to his lashes.  
He holds all five fingers out, palm facing out, and waves.

 

He waves. 

 

Dave feels his mouth open up and out in a very unnatural-feeling smile, and in a burst of energy and feathers, he is gone, wings beating the air behind him as he flies away.

His stomach is doing that thing again, where it feels like it's doing somersaults, and Dave thinks of John waving at him, palm shakily guiding all his fingers back and forth.  
His smile is hurting what is left of his cheeks, but he can't stop.

Acknowledgement is the most wonderful, glorious feeling in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait on this. Another bout of writer's block hit me like a ton of bricks.
> 
> By the way, thank you liquoricedragon for making such a beautiful work of art for this fic!! 
> 
> http://liquoricedragon.tumblr.com/image/55355706512
> 
> Rose's POV next!


	9. Observation

Rose Lalonde was very skilled in the knowledge of all things unusual.

After all, her mother was a scientist, a "mad scientist", as her classmates would say at school. True, her mother did own a large observatorium just putside of town, where she and Rose would often spend most of their time on the weekends, but she wouldn't classify that as "mad."  
Rose found her mother's experiments and studies interesting, yes, but she found that the paranormal field interested her a bit more, along with wizards and the like.

Unusual circumstances were always very good too, even if no unusual things seemed to happen in this town. 

The place that she and her friends resided in was suburbia, to be completely honest, built with little white picket fences and perfect houses lined up next to each other in neat little rows.  
Rose and her mother lived in one of the older models near the woods, where the houses were a bit more spread out, but it was too close for Rose's taste.

Often she would venture out into the woods, knapsack over her shoulder and journal in hand, out to listen to the howling of the wind through the dead trees that lay further back in the woods. When she had been smaller she had imagined that the whistling noise through the trees were ghosts, and she lean back against a trunk, eyes shut, and imagine the spirits swirling around her in transparent sheet-like figures.  
She'd imagine claws appearing out from underneath the sheet, reaching down and gripping her back, carrying her away. 

She'd open her eyes then, shivering and looking around, smiling. Scaring oneself was always a lot of fun, in her opinion. She thought of it as practice for when an actual ghost hunt would ensue.

Nowadays she knew better, and the moaning of the wind didn't spark her interest as it used to. 

She much rather would have liked something unusual to happen. 

Every day Rose thought this as she lived out her life, and as of late her ten-year old mind had decided that she must wait it out, rather than looking for the unusual things.

As it turns out, these were exactly the right thoughts, as something unusual had popped up in her life very recently. 

A very good friend of hers, John Egbert, had began recieving feathers from what seemed like crows nearly a month ago.  
This wouldn't have been very out of the ordinary, if it had not been for the fact that the feathers were recieved every single night, in the same spot. Rose had thought that it was odd, yes, but it wasn't necessarily worth worrying about.

 

Then, oh then, her dear friend had walked into school one morning, pale with bags under his blue eyes, which looked confused and rather dull. John seemed to have aged a few years overnight, and his oversized teeth were biting into his lips feverishly as he walked up to Rose that one morning, ready to explain his troubles.

As his explanation went, John had certainly found out where the feathers had come from, and it hadn't been any crow.  
A crow-like creature was more like it.

"Rose, it was...crazy. So crazy. Like, how does that even happen?"

"I've no idea. Maybe you were dreaming?"

"No, I'm sure I wasn't! I have the scratch marks on my window to prove it! And he flew away! I saw him go."

"John, tell your dad. Maybe it's a stalker."

"A stalker with wings and bird claws that can fly?"

"...An unorthodox stalker."

"But no! I won't tell my dad...He already worries too much, y'know? And besides, it was like..." He trailed off, biting the croner of his lip.

"Like...?"

"He didn't want to hurt me Rose. It was obvious...I mean, you should've seen the way he looked at me."

Rose had raised an eyebrow, and felt a smile stretch across her face.  
That had certainly been an interesting advancement, and she felt herself growing as giddy and excited as she had in the woods, an odd sort of chill running up her spine.

"Well. That does make a difference. John, do you mind if I do some research?"

 

Now, Rose stood underneath John's window on a Saturday night, having snuck out as quietly as possible, flashlight and bag in hand. She's sure her mother had seen her, but at the moment she didn't exactly care. She is waiting.

She has made sure to dress in all black, shoving her unnaturally blonde hair into a black beanie she had found in a storage closet. She sits in the darkest shadow of the house, sitting with a camera in hand.

This wasn't safe at all, honestly, seeing as if the creature was a stalker he might easily kill Rose.  
If the creature was indeed real, what if it kills her anyway?

Rose however, isn't really thinking about that.  
She's looking at the sky, hoping to spot a flash of wings or a white beak against the moon.

 

-

 

Rose sits for about two hours before nearly giving up.  
There have been no noises, or even a sight of anything unusual at all.

John has not awaken yet, and no one is at his window.

She sighs and picks up her sack, making sure to be as quiet as possible, considering that John's father is still awake.  
She stands, looking up at the sky, and cannot believe her luck.

 

There it is, a large bird like thing, flying towards the house in long, loping flaps of beraggled wings. Rose feels her jaw drop and her heartrate speed up, and she presses herself against the house, palms splayed as she grips a slab of paneling.

It flies closer, finally dropping down into the tree next to John's window, and Rose feels her eyes dart around just to simply look at this creature.

Her hands itch to draw the slump of his shoulders and the way his claws grip the branch below him so desperately, the way his wings fold under so neatly.

He inches up to John's window in very calculated movements, face leaning forward til the long beak is nearly touching the window. She recognizes it as a sixteenth-century doctor's mask, and it appears to be scuffed, and...bloodstained?

 

She watches as he raised his hand, clenching and unclenching in a hesitant manner, before finally laying a flat-palmed hand against the window.  
He drums his fingers once, loud enough that Rose can hear from where she sits.

He stiffens suddenly, and Rose can tell that he's been spotted.

He remains very still, as does Rose, and his wings slightly ruffle up near the back of his shoulders. He reminds Rose very much of the birds she used to see at the zoo, when the zookeepers would lightly stroke their backs and their feathers would ruffle.  
Oddly endearing, yet disturbing in the same.

The bird-like creature stays that way for a bit, finally back away, fingers moving up and down once in a tiny wave.  
It's such a tender movement, and it mildly confuses her as he does it. His other hand curls towards his middle, in a sort of comforting gesture.

His ears seem to wiggle upwards in a way that she can tell that he's smiling.  
Then, he backs up, gracefully leaping out of the tree and flying away.  
Absolutely in awe, Rose looks towards John's window only to see him pressed up against it, looking in the direction of the flying creature.  
His eyes are wide, and his fingers nearly claw the window.  
His chest heaves up and down, and she notices the small quirk upwards on the corner of his mouth.

 

Rose picks up her bag, feeling an all-out grin stretch across her face.  
Adjusting her hat, she begins to run home, relishing in the way her heart beat in her chest in the most terrified feeling she's ever had in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I've found that Rose is quite easy to write for, heheh.
> 
> Guys, oh my god.  
> Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback so far!! It really keeps me going, seriously.
> 
> Sorry for my sporadic updates.  
> Anyway, things are going to pick up rather soon!


	10. Notes

John didn’t know whether to be scared or not, and honestly he was leaning towards the first of the two. 

After all, how does one really react to being stalked by some winged creature that watched you sleep every night?   
Of course, Rose had thought that it was very interesting, and had gotten that creepy glow in her eyes that she gets when people talk about weird things. Her “research”, as it turns out, was trying to find the thing that was stalking him, and apparently she had found it on the first try.  
Come Monday morning she was almost late, storming into the classroom with her hair mussed and eyes all aglow. She’d even forgotten her lipstick in her haste.

John was sitting at his desk when she had run in, and as soon as he’d spotted her she’d slammed a notebook on his desk, filled to the brim with drawings of the thing. Of course, they were all very accurate and well-drawn, but little notes that were akin to a mad scientist were scribbled in the margins.  
“John, this is an amazing advancement!”  
John sighed, rubbing his arms as he looked down at the drawings. To anyone else, they’d be positively terrifying, but to him they were all too familiar.  
“Rose, did you really stalk that thing on Saturday?”  
“Yes, and John, it was amazing! You should have seen the wingspan, and- and the way he was perched! Exactly like a crow, but-“  
John stopped her by waving his hand, his other coming up to rub at his temples. His lack of sleep lately was really beginning to take a toll on his waking life. Knowing someone watched him sleep definitely did no good for his pysche, as Rose would say.  
“I don’t care. Sorry, but-“ He sighed, forcing himself to smile at her. “Could we talk about this later? I’m really tired.”  
Rose stared at him for a minute, seemingly surveying his features.  
“Oh. Of course, I’m sorry.”  
“No, it’s okay! I just need more sleep, I guess.”  
She nodded, furrowing her eyebrows as she took a closer look at him.   
He figured he didn’t look too great, seeing as he had odd little bags under his eyes that morning the color of bruised bananas. His dad had noticed of course, and had taken a minute to tilt his chin upwards to stare into his face that morning.   
He had tried to appear as if nothing was wrong, but his dad always knew better. He was weird like that.

“Are you sleeping enough, son?”  
He had smiled at his dad, of course, the sunniest he could muster, seeing as that always fooled his dad.   
“Yeah, I’m fine! Why?”  
Of course his dad’s worry wrinkle between his eyes had appeared then, and he’d let go of John’s chin, giving him a little pat on the head.  
“You’d tell me if anything was wrong, right?”  
“Well yeah, Dad. Of course I would.”  
That, of course, had been an outright lie. He’d felt terrible as soon as he’d said it, because his dad, always so trusting, had nodded and kept drinking his gross black coffee like nothing was wrong.  
Honestly he had really wanted to tell his dad, but was there really a reason to?  
He realized that stalking was wrong, yes, but this thing didn’t seem to really want to hurt him. All it-or should he say he?- did was sit at his window and put his hand up against the glass. He didn’t try to get in or even move. He would just sit there, looking at John, being as still as possible. John would always look back at him, feeling his heart jump up into his throat as he stared at thing.  
The bird-like thing would stay there for maybe an hour at most, then wave. It was a wave that people did to babies, that up-and-down movement of just the fingers. Then, he’d leap off of the branch, and be gone in seconds, flying up towards the moon.  
Only then John would find his feet, and run to the window, watching him fly away.

He wished that he could try to talk to the guy, however terrifying he might be.  
John wasn’t sure if that was a good idea or not, considering the talons on the guy, but it sure would be interesting. But then again, he wasn’t sure if the taloned thing could even speak at all. The mask he wore seemed to be stitched to his face, and he shuddered at the thought.  
Maybe he could read?  
He wasn’t sure, but it was worth a try at least.   
After all, the thing went to the trouble of flying over to his house at hours no one was even up in this town. He could at least write him a note.  
-

 

That night, before he went to sleep, John quickly wrote a note to the thing, making sure to say his name and what he liked, like you were supposed to write in letters.  
He made sure not to reveal too much, as it could be dangerous.   
Then again, this whole situation was very very dangerous, but he didn’t really think that calling the police would do much in a situation like this. Maybe they could shoot it, but since it was doing nothing wrong, there wasn’t exactly a reason to.

So, John opened his window around eight, carefully tacking the note to the bottom part of the outside screen, so his dad wouldn’t notice when he came to check on him.   
Feeling a little jittery, he went off to brush his teeth, beginning his wait.

 

He managed to stay awake until about eleven, until his eyes felt as heavy as anvils. He finally dropped off to sleep, cradling a pillow in his arms for comfort.

 

Four a.m. on the dot, John heard the tapping noise on his window that had tormented and excited him for about a week now. He quickly sat up, shoving his glasses onto his face to look out the window.  
There he was, hand pressed against the window as usual. He didn’t seem to have found the note yet, and John felt nearly nervous, knowing he’d have to point it out to him or maybe even get close to the window.  
His heart had begun it’s rapidfire drum-beating when he rose his hand to wave. He made sure to even smile a little bit, so as not to scare the guy away. The thing seemed really skittish, like those little robins that hopped around outside of his school.  
The thing was still, but twitched his fingers in a tiny wave.

They sat in silence for about five minutes, John not quite sure how to alert the thing of his note.  
Finally, after mustering up enough courage that his stomach felt like it was on a rollercoaster, he put both of his feet on the floor, pushing up with his hands until he was standing.  
He made sure to keep smiling, even though he was shaking like a leaf.  
He took a few slow steps towards the window, keeping his eyes on the little holes in the mask. The thing still hadn’t moved yet, but looked like it was on guard. It tensed as John drew closer and closer, until John was at the sill.  
They looked at each other for a few more minutes, until John finally spoke.

“I. I left a note for you.”

He pointed down at the note, hands shaking terribly. The thing slowly looked down, until it spotted the note. The hand on the window moved away, reaching down for the little slip of paper. It made John feel a little better that the thing was scared too, seeing as his hands were shaking even more than John’s.  
He gently removed the slip of paper and looked down at it, the beak of the mask grazing the corner of the paper.  
John swallowed, hand resting on the sill.

“Y-You can write back, if you want.”

The thing looked up at him, it’s feathers ruffling up quite a bit.

“I-if you don’t, that’s okay too, I guess…”

It looked down again, peering at the note before backing up, taking it’s usual stance for flying away.  
It almost jumped, but before it did, it turned, waving at John in the same baby-wave as always.  
Then, it was gone as quick as a blink, flying away with the paper in its hand.

John stared as it flew away, still trembling, and a bit confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this is the most I've updated in a week.  
> Sorry about this chapter, I don't really know what to say?
> 
> Anyway, Jesus Tapdancing Christ you guys. We're almost to 200 kudos!!!  
> I'm freaking out, omg.


	11. Replies

The note was adorable, to be completely honest. 

Scribbled in blue, with a very neat scrawl for a ten-year old, and signed at the bottom. It was all so perfect, and all so very John. Dave curls a little further into himself as he reads it, committing to memory all the little things that John had written.  
He liked Ghostbusters and an odd movie called Con Air, for some reason, and enjoyed pranking people.

Dave smiles fondly at the thought, remembering when John had pranked his father one night before bed. He remembered the adorable, hiccuping laughter that had followed afterwards, and it replayed over and over in his head as he finished the note.

He leans back in his nest, hair pricking on the rough patches of straw he'd shoved into it as an afterthought. He'd gotten the idea from the Rose girl that was John's friend at school, in her little journal she'd scribbled in when she'd visited that one Saturday evening.   
He presses the note to his chest, relishing the memory of when John had come close to the window.

Dave remembered thinking how small John really was, how delicate his wrists and thin shoulders were when he'd slumped forward to point at his little gift for Dave. He hadn't yet reached the beginning of puberty, as Dave had witnessed often with the children that used to play at the park.  
The children he used to watch pump themselves into the sky, shrieking with laughter on the swings, now hung around in tight little groups by the picnic tables, rubbing self-conciously at newly formed blemishes and coughing from drags of stolen ciggarettes.

He was glad that John was still so innocent at his age, even as he neared eleven with each passing day.  
His innocence was proven by this note, and the trust that came with it.  
No boy his age would trust such a gruesome stranger, especially with all the horrible dangers in the world these days.

His head flashed in pain as he thought this, remembering blood, and for some reason, needles.  
Absentmindedly he plucked at the stitches near his face, peering at the letter to keep his mind off the odd memory.  
He pulled a little too hard, removing a stitch with a painful snap.

More decomposition. 

Oh, positively wonderful.   
And when John had just began to notice and acknowledge his presence, too.

 

Of course, Dave had to write back, and he did just that, snatching a pen and some stationary from an open window of a studio apartment he often passed on his flight to John's house. 

Balancing the paper on his knee, he curled up with his wings around him, ignoring the painful gummy feel when they folded. 

The pen was a bit difficult to balance in his taloned hand, but he was going to respond even if it killed him.

He carefully scribbled the first sentence, cringing at his angular, unpracticed handwriting. He didn't remember where he had learned to write, but didn't wish to remember either.  
The times he'd tried, he remembered a warm hand around his own, his own smaller hand looking so pale and odd, and then the strange knocking of pain would begin in his head, crippling his thoughts.

Now, he wrote his name, it looking so unfamiliar to himself. Dave. What a common name, and so odd for one like himself.

My name is Dave.

There. Introductions were over with.

He felt the need to explain himself, and guiltily he thought of how long he'd watched John. It'd gone on about four years now; introductions were a bit late, in his opinion.

What could he say?

"I've watched you since you were six, and I already know all the things you've told me."

Ridiculous.

 

My name is Dave.

 

That's all he really could say, to be honest. He couldn't say that he enjoyed watching people, or that he picked up things long forgotten from the street.   
He couldn't explain his appearance, because he didn't understand that himself.

 

My name is Dave.

 

Yes, that would have to do for now.  
Anything John wanted to ask could be spoken to him, if John worked up the courage to actually speak to him, with the window open.  
He doubted that would happen anyway, seeing as John was already so scared of him.

 

So, he quickly kicked off from his nest, paper tucked into the inside pocket of his suit, and made for John's house.

It was a bit early to be going, bit it didn't necessarily matter. The people in this town were a sleepy kind, only the more seedy types staying out very late. The sunset was a remeinder that children would be taking their baths, and that the old would be tucking themselves into bed.  
He looked down as he flew out of the forest, and nearly fell when he spotted the Rose girl, of all people.

She stood looking up at him, black lips stark against her pale face. Her journal was clenched under her arm, as it had been a few nights ago.

Dusk drew quickly behind her, and Dave vaguely wondered where her parents were, as no children stayed out this late.   
Then again, he'd often seen this girl sitting in his forest, reading, writing, or simply napping. She hadn't been one of the children he'd closely watched, seeing as she'd been less innocent than the rest of her age group.   
He'd only seen her a few times at the park, sitting on a park bench instead of playing.

The woods was where he'd seen her most, and he hadn't payed much attention to her in the past, until he'd learned that she was a close friend of John.  
He'd learned that she'd be a regular person in his life, if he was going to continue to see John as he did.

He watched as her lips opened to reveal white teeth, and a very genuine smile.  
She lifted a black gloved hand, and much too elegantly for one so young, waved at him as he flew out of her sight.

What an interesting child.

He could learn to like her very much, judging by he odd bright smile.

 

He arrived around eight, a bit confused when he noticed that the car was out of the driveway, seeing as it was a school night for John, and how Dad Egbert generally never left the house these days, except for work and shopping.

Carefully he touched down in the usual spot and was surprised when he noticed John's light was on.

John sat on his bed in his pajamas, gamce controller in his hand. Dave could see the faint blue glow of the television in the glare of his glasses, thumbs tapping rapidly at the buttons on the controller.   
His mouth hing open in a dazed fashion, eyes half lidded.

Dave decided that he didn't enjoy this mindless look on John, and without really thinking about it, knocked sharply on the window.

John jumped violently, dropping the co troller on the floor and jolting forward, nearly falling off of the bed. He turned his head in a jerky movement towards the window, hand diving into the blanket to grip at the blanket.  
He stared at Dave for a moment before swallowing and getting up.

Such a brave boy.

Dave made sure to wave, keeping his posture as relaxed as he could allow himself to be.  
He reached into his suit, fishing out the note. He held it up, waving it.

John leaned closer, squinting at the piece of paper before walking forward, a bit faster than he had Dave's previous visit.  
He came to window, staring at the note.

"Is that for me?" John mumbled quietly, glancing at Dave, voice trembling slightly.

Dave nodded, making sure not to touch the window. Instead, he held out the paper, trying to keep his hand from shaking. He pushed it forward, hoping John would catch the hint.

"Do...do you want me to open the window...?" John asked, one hand curling in towards himself. His eyebrows arched downward, looking a bit scared, and maybe sad.

Dave nodded, careful to keep his body language unthreatening. His boy was being so smart by being so cautious. Such a smart, smart boy, he thought fondly.

John looked down at his hands, nibbling on his lower lip for a moment. He glanced upwards at Dave, then back down again.

"Well...Okay."

He reached forward, snapping the locks open with his delicate hands, and pushing the window up, along with the screen. He stared at Dave's face the whole time, eyes nervously looking at his wings and mask.

Wasting no time, Dave pushed the note forward, still holding onto it. He wanted John to actually take it from him, to make some progress.  
John looked so terrified as he reached for the note, taking it with violently shaking fingers. Dave let go of the note quickly, looking at John's face, and wishing he could speak.

John looked down at the note, reading the only sentence written. The breeze rippled through his unruly hair.

"Dave. That's your name?"

Oh, God, how wonderful it was for John to say his name. He almost shuddered at how sweet it sounded, but settled for ruffling his feathers only slightly. He nodded a bit more vigorously than before, and John looked at him as he did so, his lips quirking upwards once.

Stiffly, John forced his hand outward, staring at Dave with scared, but determined blue eyes.

"N-nice to meet you."

Dave tilted his head, feeling his own lips turn up. Gently he reached forward, taking the small hand in his own. He applied no pressure at all, as his talons were grazing the soft palm in his own.

John smiled, lips wavering a bit as he did so.

"Uh. Goodnight." He looked at Dave once more before drawing back, shutting the window and locking it once again.  
He quickly turned and walked away, out of his room. But before he left, he turned, waving.

Cheeks stinging with the unfamiliar use of the muscles in his face, Dave waved back, before silently slipping away into the now-arrived dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go, some more contact for you guys.  
> Eventually Dave's background will be revealed, so don't worry about that too much.
> 
> It's possible that Mom Lalonde will take on the next chapter, but we'll have to see.
> 
> Once again, thank you all for all the wonderful feedback on this fic!!   
> It's unbelievable, really.
> 
> I apologize for any typos/grammar mistakes.


	12. Not an update.

Okay, guys.

Just yesterday my tablet, which I use to write on, was broken.  
What this means is there will probably be a severe lack of updates over the next few weeks/months/whenever my tablet is replaced.

I'm really, really, REALLY sorry guys. Thank you for giving me support and the like to continue writing this, and I am definitely not going to abandon it.

The update time may be once a week, if I can get it that way.

I apologize once again, and I'll try to be writing again soon.


	13. Burnt

Roxy Lalonde had always known that her child had been less than normal, and up until recently, it had never really bothered her before.  
Rose had always been…well, Rose, and nothing had ever been wrong with that in any way, except for maybe her daughter’s hermit-like ways, but Roxy had made sure never to pry in Rose’s affairs all that much.

 

Rose never used to spend time outside except for her small hour-long walk she religiously took twice a week, into the dead woods behind their house.   
Roxy had always thought that very odd, and would watch Rose trudge in an almost-light way into the bunt trees and oddly ashy ground.

It was common knowledge that the woods behind the house used to be home to a mental hospital, back when the town had no more than a hundred people living in it, sometime in the 1920’s.   
Of course when Rose had found out about this, when she was about seven, she had immediately been drawn to the woods. She used to come running back babbling about things that scared her, and she’d tell Roxy all of it with a clean-lipped smile, clutching a Harry Potter notebook in her tiny, pale arms.

She always talked about ghosts and crows.

Then, she had grown up quite a bit, starting to apply black lipstick around the time she turned nine, and becoming quite subdued in her ways, her young face always looking much too old and solemn.  
She had even began to drink out of discarded wineglasses of Roxy’s, leaving black smudges on the edge of the bowl of the glass.

Roxy had objected to that, of course, and Rose had simply smiled.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I wouldn’t drink any of that disgusting stuff you keep in the top of your closet.”

Shortly after, a new hiding place for her liquor was found, and Rose continued to drink out of wineglasses, a tiny smirk curling pleasantly upwards when she did so, book heavy in her lap as she read.

 

Rose, always the mature one, made of the pretty sarcasm of a geisha and the looks of a fairy princess, sans the lipstick.  
She had kept to her ways in a routine manner, and hadn’t bothered her mother much, until recently.

 

Roxy had began to notice very odd behavior on Rose’s part.

 

Her walks now extended two or three hours, and she took them every day.  
She’d return with an expression that made Roxy remember when she had been much smaller, all dimples and white teeth and a perfect smile on her face.

Roxy would casually ask what had happened to make her so happy, and Rose would only give her a look much too coy for her age, and never answered.  
Roxy never questioned her afterwards, and only pondered it as she swished a glass of Pinot gris in its glass, late in the night in front of her laptop.

 

Perhaps the woods had something to do with her daughter’s slightly off behavior?

Roxy didn’t particularly like that fact, seeing as she was pretty sure that the woods were haunted, however cheesy it seemed.

 

After all, how could a burnt-down mental hospital have absolutely zero spirits around?

She knew that it hadn’t been burnt on purpose, and that a grease fire in the hospital kitchen had caused the whole ordeal.  
Apparently the fire grew too big before a small dash of baking soda could extinguish it, and they had made the mistake of throwing water on a grease fire, only spreading it and causing more damage.

Long story short, the fire quickly grew out of control, killing two kitchen staff members before spreading to the first floor wing.

Most of the patients had been evacuated, but the ones under lockdown had perished, seeing as the orderlies had ran out, key rings hooked to their belts that would have saved them.  
The two back buildings, unknown for their uses, had also burned down.

The townspeople reported screaming from the back buildings, but it was too late by the time the fire was put out.  
Bodies were recovered and buried, and the remaining parts of the mental hospital demolished, leaving the ash to settle in the woods.

 

Roxy shuddered at the thought, looking out at the woods as dusk stretched out across the sky, casting shadows that looked oddly like fingers from the trees.  
The grass still didn’t grow back where the hospital used to be.

 

Roxy never would’ve taken the offer for the house, had she and Rose not been the last remaining relatives of the old man that had lived and died here.  
He had owned the hospital in the time when it had been functioning, and had never married or had children.

In his will he had written that the hospital would go to the Lalondes.

 

Roxy had found it odd, seeing as she had never spoken to the man in her life, and neither had Rose.   
She had wanted to simply sell the house, but no one would take it, due to the property it was sitting on.

And so, they packed up, moved to this old little town in Washington, and she had began her work at the new hospital on the outskirts of town, when Rose had turned five.

 

Sure, the circumstances had been odd and quite frankly a bit creepy, but she hadn’t thought much of it until now, when her daughter began to return from the woods with that pretty smile on her face, an odd twinkle in her eyes that knew all too much.

 

Roxy had thought of telling Rose to stop going into the woods, but she knew it was one of the things that kept her daughter happy over the years. In a way it had been her escape, she knew. 

She couldn’t just take the one thing away that was sparking Rose’s interest, the thing that made her sketchbooks fill with drawings and her journals spill odd words about a bird-man and his sad, sad eyes.

 

…So perhaps she had snooped a bit.  
She had been worried; she had a right, in her mind.

 

The writings certainly were odd.  
A winged boy, with a sixteenth-century doctor’s mask grafted to his face. 

The drawings showed a boy with his arms outstretched, along with ragged-looking wings, with a tattered suit on, pulled over his claws.

Notes were written like a medical diagram.

“Stitches visible on both sides of the face, with noticeable decay to the skin.”

 

“Hands almost human-like, except for talons. Talons appear to be attached in ways unnatural.”

 

“Wings rotting between the shoulders, suit is ripped, showing tips of vertebrae.”

 

…Whatever it was, it was certainly grotesque, and in some sketches, appeared to be in pain.

Was it a character that Rose was developing?  
Perhaps something on the internet?

 

Roxy would have to ask later, after some well-done research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this chapter is so awful, it seems I'm a little practice after not writing for so long. ;_;
> 
>  
> 
> Alright.  
> My tablet is supposed to be replaced soon, but I can't be too sure. I'm going to try to update as much as I can, so please be patient with me!  
> Also, thank you guys who wished me luck, that was very sweet. uvu
> 
> I'll try to update again very soon!!!


	14. Decay

Dave is feeling much brighter than before, but he’s decaying faster than ever.

At first he didn’t really notice; he dealt with the pain of decaying wings and skin and claws every day of this life, if that’s what one would call it. Blood and gore dropping off of his body was something he associated with the norm, and so he didn’t pay much attention to it. He was much too focused on his interaction to know the severity of his own condition.

Then, within the few months that he had began to actually talk to John, his flesh began to rot at an incredibly fast pace.  
Around his wings was the worst, and he was shedding more and more feathers with each passing day. It was harder to hide in the trees when he concealed himself during the day. His feathers would drop off onto the ground, sometimes three or four at a time, and each one that fell off stung terribly. 

The skin on his spine had completely rotted off towards the middle of his shoulders, showcasing the tips of each vertebrae that went down, and the pattern seemed to be stretching out towards his wings.

This is what worried him.

If he couldn’t fly, then that was the end of him.  
Someone would find him, and surely kill him, or turn him in somewhere, where he was sure that the people would do terrible things to him.  
That, and he’d never be able to see John again, unless by some miracle, John came to see him instead.

He doubted that would be the case, though, seeing as John was still pretty terrified of him, despite how much braver the boy had grown over the last two months.

John’d even been brave enough to open the window, reaching out to touch the smooth surface of Dave’s mask, keeping far from the stitches on the side of Dave’s face. Dave had seen John staring at them with a very wary expression, mixed with concern and fear as he gently stroked the mask.

He had noticed the decay as well.

 

“Do they hurt?”

 

He’d pointed to the rotted skin near the stitches, hands shaking only slightly.  
So brave.

 

Dave had nodded slowly, a bit embarrassed by the stitching. 

John had frowned in response, removing his hand from Dave’s mask.

“I’m sorry. How did you get them?”

His voice had broke a little as he asked the question, and he looked more scared than even when he’d touched Dave’s mask.  
It was as if he was afraid that Dave would lash out at him, and that hurt more than the stitching and rotting flesh on his back.

Dave shrugged, hands squeezing the material of his suit near his sides. John’s brow furrowed, frown deepening on his young face. Dave briefly thought that he looked a lot like his Dad in that moment, and wished he was brave enough to say so.

“How do you not know?”

Once again, he shrugged, looking away from John. He wished he had an answer for the boy, but there really was none. Any attempt to remember anything had been futile, and had only left him with headaches that made him cover his eyes in an attempt to stop the blinding pain that would radiate throughout his temples and jaw.

He wished that he had something he could tell John, but that wasn’t the case.

 

John had stared at him for a few more minutes, eyes darting between his wings and mask and suit, and by and by he would reach for Dave’s hand, making Dave’s heart stutter in his chest, but only to pull away a moment later, fingers shaking too much.  
Finally he looked up at Dave’s face, eyes clear as the morning sky itself.

 

“I wish I could make it stop hurting.”

 

Dave remembered feeling so full with that statement, and if he had the function left in his body, he was sure he’d be blushing as red and the very substance dripping down his back in that very moment.  
But he hadn’t, and only looked down, shrugging one shoulder once in a jerky up-and-down movement.

John looked away as well, reaching behind him to grab something.

He stretched out his arm, handing Dave a piece of paper with little sketches on it.

Dave took it and looked down, recognizing the neat scrawl that belonged to Rose. He looked up at John in confusion.

“Um. It’s you.”

 

Another glance down proved that yes, it was Dave, except in a more stretched-out fashion. His arms and legs were stretched out like he had been pinned to the paper. 

“Rose sees you sometimes. She lives where you live, I think. You live in the woods by the Briar place, right?”

Dave nodded, reading the little notes written in the margin, something about how wide his wingspan was, and the “sickly” look of the wings.

 

“She said that you’re sick.”

 

Dave looked up, folding the paper.  
Sick?

So maybe this Rose girl was even more observant than he thought. Much more mature for a ten-year old than she let on.

 

He tilted his head at John, hoping he got the message.

“Well…I know that those cuts on the side of your face aren’t good, and sometimes you leave a little blood on the tree.”

He mumbled the last part, looking at Dave’s wings.  
Dave felt them ruffle involuntarily under John’s clear blue stare. He quickly straightened them out as well as he could, and shrugged as apologetically as one could while shrugging.

“We were talking about it, and Rose and I wanna try to help you? I guess?”

He bit his bottom lip worriedly, gnawing at the skin there. He looked so concerned for Dave as he looked up at him, and it made Dave’s lips turn up in a ghost of a smile.  
He reached out, gently touching the long sleeve of John’s pajamas.

John jumped, eyes wide as he stared at Dave.

“Wh-what is it?”

Dave felt his talons involuntarily clutch at the material of the pajamas, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, he cleared his throat. John watched with eyes as wide as saucers.

Finally, Dave opened his mouth, dragging out his voice in a hoarse whisper:

 

“Thank you.”

 

To Dave, it was the absolute worst noise he had ever heard in his life, sounding like a knife grating across a rusty pipe, but John smiled brighter than Dave had ever seen him smile before.

He also cleared his throat cutely, smile still in place as he did so.  
His other hand slowly rose to Dave’s on his sleeve, and his tiny, delicate fingers clutched the rough and flaky skin there.

“You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in a week! I'm impressed with myself here.  
> Once again, I apologize for the odd way I've written the chapters this week; I really, really, need to try to write again soon. 
> 
> I'm hoping that in the weeks to come I can update maybe twice a week, seeing as I start school again on the nineteenth.  
> So, what I'm saying here is that I am going to try to start updating on the weekends if I can.  
> Meanwhile, I may write oneshots on my DS, but writing longer chapters for fics like this on a DS is just too hard to do. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for the wonderful feedback!!! I really thrive on it, and you guys are great.  
> (Also sorry for the long note, I'll go now. uvu)


	15. Doctor

Roxy Lalonde had certainly never seen anything like this before in her life, and she had not in any way expected her daughter to have seen it either.

 

There it is, the thing from Rose’s notes, perched on a tree branch in the woods , curled up and looking almost terrified. Its wings shake and quiver and its clawed hands are curled into its chest as it watches Rose and Roxy. 

 

Roxy cannot see its eyes, but she is almost positive that they’d be looking at her, wide and probably bloodshot with fear. After all, Rose had brought her out her straight from a night shift at the hospital, with her doctor’s coat still on and her hair mussed. 

 

Roxy figures that she probably looks very tired, and possibly angry, when really she is in absolute awe. 

She can’t exactly blame seeing the thing on alcohol, seeing as she hasn’t had a drink in over 24 hours, and she hasn’t ingested any drugs or even an energy drink.   
No, Roxy is completely sober, staring at a creature that was much akin to horror movies that is curled up and shaking like a baby kitten.

 

They stare at it for quite some time, Roxy glancing over at Rose every so often to check how she felt about the situation. Rose looks at the thing with a calm expression, pity lacing the serenity in her eyes, and Roxy wonders how she could keep calm in a situation like this.  
Rose finally steps forward, looking up at the thing and holding out a hand, face-up.

 

“Dave, this is my mother, Roxy.”

 

The thing stops shaking a bit, uncurling at the sound of Rose’s voice. It inches away from the trunk of the tree, looking down at her. A few feathers dislodge themselves and spiral down towards the ground, landing on a pile of dead leaves below.  
Roxy notes the gunky way they simply plop onto the ground, not as light as most bird’s feathers are. Instead the edges of them are lined with something wet, and she knows better than to think it’s just water .

 

“She’s a doctor, and I’ve asked her to help you.”

 

What?

 

No, Rose had not asked this of Roxy, and honestly Roxy wanted no part in this. Any sane person would call the police or animal control at least, to lock this thing up where it can’t harm people. The talons were sharp enough to slit anyone’s throat with just a prick, and she was sure that this thing wasn’t all there mentally. 

 

It was dangerous. 

 

It could snap at any moment, it being hunched over like a patient in a psych ward, ready to pounce--

 

But then, the thing did a very soft thing with its feathers, ruffling them like a small birds. It leaned forward even more, talons clutching at the bark on the brank it perched on almost desperately. 

A closer look showed that this thing wasn’t really all that tall or wide, had the wings not been there. It had the lanky look of a teenager, and one with insecurities at that. Roxy felt her brow furrow involuntarily when she realized what age this thing might actually be.  
The suit it wore looked very old and tattered, and bloodstained at that, especially near the shoulders. Rose’s eyes were locked on the more soaked spots, Roxy noticed, and only then did she catch the scent of old, and possibly rotting, flesh.

She wrinkled her nose, feeling the familiar pity she felt with her patients, mixed with something that made her knees almost buckle.

That part scared her a bit, but she decided not to question it. If this thing had trusted Rose enough for her to learn its name and for it not to take off like a wild deer, maybe Roxy could trust her daughter to learn about this “Dave.”

 

She watched as Rose smiled up at him as he moved closer.  
She also stepped forward, looking back at Roxy once.

 

“Could you come down, please? My mother needs to have a closer look at you.”

 

At that the creature began to curl in on itself again, wings curling like a safety net around its thin body. Its hands began to visibly shake again, clutching at the material of his suit.

 

“Dave, it’s alright. She wants to help.”

 

That was a lie, and even Rose knew it. Even if Roxy pitied this thing, she wasn’t exactly jumping on the bandwagon of helping it. At the moment she was trying to process whether or not she was dreaming. This situation had already progressed far too much than it should have, and frankly Roxy had wished that she had never even looked at Rose’s journal in the first place.

 

Rose wouldn’t have known that she looked, and would never had asked her help for “something very unusual, but important.”  
She wouldn’t be out in the fucking woods like some bitch from a horror movie, watching this thing interact with her daughter like it had known her all her life.

 

Shaking its head in a manner that clearly meant “I shouldn’t do this”, the creature began to climb down the tree rather fast, and Roxy wondered why it didn’t use its wings. A scuffed boot touched the forest floor, and it stood there looking at him, wings drawn against his back and mask turned to Roxy.

 

“Yes, that’s better. Mom?”

 

Rose looked back at Roxy, eyes brighter than Roxy had ever experienced before. The beginnings of a smile were playing in the corners of her mouth, and her posture was never more straight and formal. Rose beckoned with a pointer finger, black polish dancing in the light.

Hesitating, Roxy stepped forward, curiosity pushing her more than anything. She stopped beside Rose, about five feet in front of the thing.

Now, she could look at the thing closely, but not close enough to touch.

 

“Dave, show her your back, please.”

 

“Dave” turned around, gently spreading his wings open, showcasing his wounded back.  
Roxy nearly gasped when she looked, a hand coming up to cover her mouth.

The cuts on his back were much, much worse than Rose had drawn in her journals. The wounds were festering to where pus was dripping from every cut, and the exposed vertebrae were beginning to flake off on the top. Dried blood surrounded the exposed flesh, layer after layer of it causing the blood to become gelatinous and thick.  
The smell was another thing entirely, and it could only be described as rotting meat, mixed with a smell Roxy had only associated with death.

She was faintly reminded of leprosy and the damage it caused, which had always been irreversible. That itself was something out of a horror movie. This was much worse.

 

“Alright. Now your face, Dave. You’ll have to step a little closer.”

 

How could Rose be so calm?

Dave did step forward, close to Roxy, and turned his face to the side.

The damage on the side of his face was something that looked like it could have no repair from how far gone it was.  
Stitches, of all things, kept the mask attached to his face, leaving only his chin exposed, which didn’t appear to be too marred.   
The skin around the stitches, however, was nearly green, with bits of flesh actually flaking off. 

The thing’s shoulders were hunched in what looked like pain mixed with embarrassment, and after Roxy nodded to show she was done, it refused to look at them, face pointed towards the ground. Rose cleared her throat, one hand gently reaching forward to pluck a stray leaf off of his sleeve.

“Dave, it’s alright. We’re going to help you.”

She turned to look at Roxy, her eyes serious and sharp. 

 

“Right, Mother?”

 

Ah, there it was. The clipped “mother” that made chills go up Roxy’s spine. Rose had a penchant for using the tone when there was something important to her at stake, and Roxy could only guess that this creature was important to her. She watched the way that she gripped the sleeve of the thing’s suit, and was faintly reminded of a Tim Burton movie.  
She almost laughed at the irony of it, and honestly she was at the point of being hysterical.

After all, things like this only happened in movies, right?

Right?

 

Roxy sucked in a breath, fear only now coming to rest at the bottom of her stomach. 

 

“Right, Rose.”

 

The thing looked up, and for a moment Roxy could swear that she could see the thing’s eyes, as the glass shined in a way that couldn’t in the light, and instead came from inside the mask.

Roxy did her best to quell the awful, bubbling fear that was currently rising up in her throat at the realization that all of this was actually real.

She put on her “doctor’s smile”, rising her shaking voice to a pleasant tone.

 

“I’ll do my best to help you, Dave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, another bad chapter, in my opinion.
> 
> I do like writing in Roxy's POV, though. She's easy for me, like Rose is.  
> I dunno.
> 
> Anyway, I should be getting my tablet back so we can have regular updates again!! If not, I'll try my best.
> 
> ONCE AGAIN, you guys are the best, and the feedback I've gotten is so great!! Honestly, I wouldn't still be writing this if you guys didn't like it so much.


	16. Worries

“John, Dave’s going to be fine. I asked my mother and she agreed to help him.”

 

 

John watched as Rose scribbled something in her now-tattered notebook, probably a picture of Dave, like she did nowadays. John sighed, twirling one of Dave’s feathers in his hand. He had taken to keeping them on hand lately, tucking a few in his pocket everytime he went somewhere. He didn’t really understand why he did it; it had just become a habit.

 

Currently the two were placed under John’s tree, discussing their next plan in action for Dave. Rose had said that Dave was resting before her mother took a much closer look at his wounds and how to treat them. John didn’t really blame Dave; it seemed that Dave never got sleep at all, since he was always either at John’s house or at the park.

 

 

“I know, Rose. But I’m worried.”

 

“Why?”

 

John fiddled with the feather, lightly tracing his finger up the quill. It seemed like so long ago since Dave had left him the first feather. He felt considerably older since then, even though it had only been a few months.

 

 

“…What if she can’t fix him? What if he never gets better, Rose?”

 

 

He looked up at her, trying his best to keep the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes out of sight.

 

 

 

As weird as it was, he knew he was really attached to Dave in a way he didn’t exactly know how to describe. The way Dave looked at him made him feel safe, even if he was a bit scary at times. He always stared at John in an intense way that John had honestly only seen in romantic movies. Thinking about that was a bit weird, sure, but thinking about Dave not being there was even weirder. The tears threatened to escape his eyes, and he tried to subtley scrub them away.

 

 

Who knew he’d be crying over someone that he would’ve been scared of nearly a year ago?

 

 

Rose’s mouth opened a bit to reply, but closed it, looking down at her journal. It actually was a rough sketch of Dave, his wings spread out across two pages. It reminded John of the picture of Icarus he used to have in a myth book his Nanna had given him when he was very little.

 

 

That thought made him a little scared, and he tried to get the picture of Icarus falling out of the sky out of his head. What if something equally bad happened to Dave?

 

 

“Well. John, I suppose he’ll…” She trailed off, lightly brushing a hand across the sketch of Dave. John noticed that her eyes looked the tiniest bit sad, her usually passive lips turned down.

 

 

John cleared his throat, willing any extra tears away.

 

“Okay. Nevermind. He’s gonna be okay, right?”

 

He bit his lip, furrowing his brow and staring at Rose.

 

Rose looked up at him, her mouth still slightly open. He watched as her neck tensed and untensed, her eyes nearly snapping with that odd shine he’d seen so many times before.

 

She closed her mouth, nodding firmly.

 

 

-

 

 

“You’ll be okay, Dave. We’ll make sure of it!”

 

John tried his very best to smile brightly at Dave as he said this later that night, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He found that it was much easier to talk to Dave as of late, and would even open the window to sit on the sill and talk to him.

He was surprised that his Dad hadn’t found them out yet, or if he knew, why he didn’t stop John from doing it. John hoped that he knew Dave was harmless, seeing as Dave had never really hurt anyone before.

 

 

Dave stared back at him for a minute, hand curling around his stomach. John noticed that Dave did that a lot when he was thinking or nervous, and he seemed to be nervous around John quite a bit.

He nodded in reply, leaning forward to gently touch one of John’s hands.

 

This was their signal to get the notepad, so Dave could speak to John.

John had quickly found out that Dave hated using his voice, due to how scratchy and metallic it sounded. He preffered using the notepad and pen, so that he could converse faster and offer more detail

 

The few times he had used his voice sent terrified but exhilarating chills up John’s spine, and he remembered his cheeks hurting from smiling so hard. Dave had only looked away, hands clutching nervously at the sides of his suit.

 

Now he handed the notepad and pen to Dave, who quickly scribbled a reply on the paper. John liked watching him write, his angular handwriting filling up a page surprisingly fast.

 

 

He handed the note back to John.

 

 

_Are you sure? She seemed like she didn’t exactly want to help me._

“I’m totally sure! Roxy is a great doctor.”

 

 

_I hate doctors, they’re fuckin crazy._

John stared at the sentence, biting the corner of his lip as he did so. Dave hated doctors? Hadn’t he said that he had never been to a doctor before?

 

He looked up at Dave, face twisted in confusion.

 

“I thought you’d never been to a doctor?”

 

John watched as Dave blinked under his mask, white eyelashes brushing against the glass. He tilted his head a bit, hand clutching hard at his side. The suit ripped a little bit under his talons, and John reached forward, gently taking his arm away from his side. He winced when he noticed that his hands had begun shaking again.

 

 

It was incredibly hard to get used to Dave, and he felt bad that he still was a bit scared of him. But honestly, who could really blame him? Dave was a bird creature with claws that could rip him to shreds.

He thought it was pretty brave of him to be even talking to Dave, let alone touching him.

 

 

“Dave. Y-You’re doing it again.”

 

Dave looked down at his hand, not moving away from his side. John pursed his lips, gently pulling at the arm.

Dave let him pull his hand away from his side, talons curling and uncurling when John gently touched his wrist.

 

His wings ruffled up again, and John smiled a bit. Dave always did that when John touched him, and he wondered if it was something he only did around John.

 

Or maybe he didn’t like it?

John hoped he wasn’t bothering him, and let go, placing his hands firmly at his sides.

 

 

Dave picked up the pad with slightly shaking hands, scribbling something before pushing it towards John.

 

 

_Sorry. I don’t remember._

John noticed Dave avoided his eyes, one hand twitching upwards towards his head. Dave got headaches when he tried to remember something, and John immediately felt bad that he’d asked any questions. He frowned before shaking his head and smiling again.

 

 

“It’s okay. You’ll be fine, I promise. Rose and I will be there, so you can uh, hold our hands or something.”

 

 

Dave looked up again, and his ears wiggled up in that weird way when he smiled. Of course, John couldn’t see the smile, but Dave’s whole disposition changed when he was happier. His back straightened out a bit, as well as his wings. John felt his own smile grow.

 

The watch on John’s wrist beeped, and he looked down to check the time.

 

Three in the morning. Jeez.

 

 

“Um. Sorry, Dave. I got school in the morning. I gotta go to bed, okay?”

 

He shrugged apologetically, half-smiling and edging back towards the inside of the house. He touched down on the carpet and looked back towards Dave, who had gone back to slumping in that almost-sad way he did. He wings had drooped too, touching the tree branch.

 

 “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?"

 

He turned, ready to go back to bed, until he felt a sharp little tug on the side of his pajamas.

He looked back at Dave, only to almost run into the nose of Dave’s mask. John jumped, moving his head back sharply so as not to cut his nose on the sharp edge of the beak.

 

Staring straight into the eye-holes of the mask, John started again when he felt the sharp pricks of talons gently run down the side of his face, the rough palm of Dave’s hand pressed against John’s warm cheek. John felt his breath hitch in his chest, and he felt his teeth worry his lip.

 

Dave cleared his throat, attempting to build up his voice like he always did, and John saw his odd-colored eyes blink wetly.

 

 

Dave never did speak, but instead moved his face past John’s, and instead pressing his extremely cold cheek to John’s own. He stayed there for a minute, and John felt his own cheeks heat up rapidly. The touch felt extremely gentle, and his palm gingerly cupped his palm, as if John was made of glass. Dave pressed against him a bit more firmly, the talons on the opposite side of John’s face moving away.

 

Dave pulled back quickly, standing from his crouch almost clumsily. Staring at John with troubled eyes, he cleared his throat one last time, before his metallic voice grated through the air.

 

“Night, John.”

 

 

Then, as quickly and silently as he came, Dave was gone, flying towards the moon.

 

 

John watched him go with wide eyes, one hand rising up to where Dave had pressed his face against his own, feeling confusion rise up in his chest like a bubble. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written badly, in my opinion. I'm sorry. u_u
> 
> The next chapter will probably be gory, or not. I dunno, I'm trying to plan these chapters as well as I can, but quickly enough so you guys can get the next chapter you want. ;u;
> 
> You guys are absolutely adorable, btw.  
> Thanks for all the great feedback!!


	17. Examination

“Alright, Dave. I’m going to cut away parts of you suit so I can have a closer look at your back.”

 

Dave winced as soft hands gently brushed the angry red marks that had recently gathered around his back by his clothes.   
He didn’t want Roxy to remove any of his clothing, even though he knew it was necessary.   
This suit was something he’d worn everyday of this life, and honestly he had used it as a safety blanket of sorts. Now it was being cut away from him.

 

Dave honestly did not want to be here, stretched out on a metal table in the Lalonde’s basement, staring at all the sharp tools and the elastic gloves snapped on to Roxy’s wrists. The fear in his stomach was something that was all too familiar, but something he had also never remembered experiencing in this life. 

 

He tried not to hunch over when he felt scissors gently snip away at the cloth on his back.

 

The Lalondes had quickly moved Dave inside the house only last night; or should he say this morning? Regardless, it had been extremely dark, to the point where no one on their block had any lights on, the normal people of the town tucked away to get their sleep for the next day.

Dave faintly wondered why the Lalondes hadn’t been like this, seeing as Rose was a very nice young girl and Roxy was a pretty woman with charisma he’d seen in a person, other than John of course.

No, instead the Lalondes were two women who were interested in the unusual, and Roxy had all but hugged Dave when she saw him the second time. He remembered her perfectly manicured nails gripping his aching shoulders softly, and the very wide but kind smile she’d given him before she led him into their home.

 

That should’ve been a comforting thought to help him cope with laying face-down on the cold metal table, to help him feel a little better about all this.  
Instead he just felt more dread, and only wondered if Roxy had the skill to actally heal him like Rose said she could. 

 

He wished John were here to hold his hand.

 

 

The hand at his back gingerly poked a spot that gave way much too easily, sending stinging pain racing up Dave’s back. He jumped, and his wings nearly knocked over the tray of tools sitting nearby. He tried his best to stay still, curling his wings towards himself, but with enough room so that Roxy could still work.

 

“Hm. Dave, how long have you been like this?” 

 

Dave nearly groaned at the thought of using his voice, but cleared his throat anyway, his voice taking its time to rise in his throat and answer.

 

“F-Forever.”

 

Roxy tsked in what sounded like pity, laying a hand delicately over Dave’s back and wing area. The touch was comforting, and he felt the tense knots in his shoulders slowly unwind as she gently patted his back.

 

“Dave, do you want me to tell you the truth?”

 

Dave craned his neck as well as he could, keeping his beak raised up above the table. He nodded, bracing one hand under himself to keep his balance.

 

Roxy sighed, wiping her hands on a towel nearby. She walked closer so that Dave could look at her better. He didn’t like the little wrinkle she got on the left side of her face when she frowned; her usually so youthful face aged at least ten years.

 

“Well. From what I can tell, a lot of the tissue on your back, near your wings”—she patted the area delicately—“is dead, and there isn’t much we can do about that but to remove it and transfer blood to the area so that new tissue can be formed.”

 

Dave nodded, cringing at the image. He hadn’t looked at his back recently, but what she had described had not sounded good at all.

 

“However, this tissue has been dead for what looks like years, Dave. I’m surprised that the rot I see here hasn’t spread as much as it should have. I only see this rot near your wings, back, and face.”

 

He nodded again, trying to ignore the pain that welled up near his face when Roxy mentioned the decaying skin.

 

“Speaking of which, sit up so I can examine your face please.”

 

The pitying and somewhat amazed tone of only moments ago had snapped back to being professional and clear, and Dave obeyed, sitting up and looking away as she gently turned his face to the side to examine the stitching.

She traced a finger across one of the stitches, pulling back when it began to crumble under her finger. Her brow furrowed, she turned away, picking up what looked like little tweezers to Dave, and gently removing the stitch.   
It came away with a little pop, and Dave shuddered at the dull pain that went through his body as it was removed. He tried his best to keep his feathers from ruffling up.

 

“The stitches aren’t very deep…How have they stayed on this long?”

 

Dave shrugged, face still turned to the side as Roxy pressed her finger to a rotting spot near his temple.

 

“Oh. Here, see? This is where the rot’s began.”

 

The skin there was an almost-black colour, the tell-tale sign of dead tissue underneath. She tsked again, trying to lift the mask from Dave’s face, but to no avail. Sighing, she pulled back once again, more concern hidded in the odd pink eyes than there had been before.

 

“Be honest with me. How bad is it under the mask?”

 

Dave felt his throat hitch up when he tried to answer, but could only look away, swinging his feet slightly as they hung over the table, brushing the floor with the toes of his shoes.

 

“That bad, huh?”

 

Roxy sighed, hoisting herself up onto the counter nearby, placing a hand under her chin to think.

 

“Alright. I think I know what we can do, but keep in mind that it. Well. It might not work.”

 

She looked up at Dave to make sure he was listening, and he nodded, hands folded tightly in his lap.

 

“You know what a skin graft is, right?”

 

The two words rung out with recognition that Dave probably had no business knowing of, but now was not the time for headaches from memories. He nodded, attempting to ignore the ache that rung in the back of his head.

 

“I’m thinking that since the rot hasn’t spread anywhere other than your back, wings, and face, then it’s possible that we can save the tissue there.”

 

Dave brightened immediately, sitting up a bit straighter as he listened.

 

“We’re going to have to do a series of allografts, from what I can tell, and I’m sorry to say that it’s going to be a very lengthy process, with how much damaged tissue you have.”

 

Dave tilted his head at the word “allograft”, hoping Roxy would explain. She did, of course, like most good doctors do.

 

“An allograft is a skin graft from another person’s body, so we will be giving you skin from another person. In your case we’re going to have to graft both layers of skin, considering how deep your wounds are.”

Dave nodded once more.

“There may be complications, though. If your body rejects the skin from another person’s body, then the process will have to start all over, with skin from another person. Dave, you have time to wait, don’t you?”

 

He nodded. Of course he had time to wait. He had all the time in the world. Or at least he thought so.   
Frankly, he didn’t like thinking about how much time he had. His stomach began aching with just the stress of that that thought.

 

“Well. Considering you do have time, I’m going to have to do a series of things that are going to be extremely illegal and probably immoral to help you. You understand that, right?”

 

Dave nodded, feeling a little worse than before.

 

“Also, I’m going to have to bring in people to help me with the surgery. You won’t know them, and they won’t know you. That’s what I’m worried about.”

 

She crossed one leg over the other, not looking at Dave as she described her plans.

 

“I can trust a few people at the hospital, but I’m not sure if they’d be willing to work with you. “

 

She looked up at him, eyes snapping with the familiar shine that Rose had so often.

 

“Despite all that, I will find a way to help you Dave. You’re too important to Rose and John to lose.”

 

She half-smiled, the seriousness in her expression fading away.

 

“Besides, I think you might be growing on me, too!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the last chapter that I post for quite some time, but I'm not sure. I have to plan out how I'm going to write the surgery (if I do at all) and what happens after that.
> 
> Writing things such as if this will have a happy ending or not...
> 
>  
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback I've gotten, and you all are positively lovely!!!!


	18. Scratch

Doc Scratch considered himself a very good plastic surgeon; the best this hospital, to be honest, and that’s why he was very shocked when Roxy Lalonde approached him with a proposition that he thought he would never agree to.

 

A surgeon of his status would usually scoff at anything mildly fantastical, or at least he did. He was a man that firmly believed in science, and nothing but. That saying, he didn’t scorn any religion; that simply wasn’t his style.  
That would be very rude, and he has always found being a perfect host to his patients to be at least third on his list of how he should treat his patients.

 

However, Roxy’s request was…ridiculous, to be perfectly honest.

 

Apparently, she had already gathered the people she needed for such an act, a team of six people. A few to help with the actual surgery, and a few more to help with the checkups and such afterwards. 

 

She had come to him practically begging, only needing his approval to go through with the surgery, and she needed the permission to use the tools needed for it, such as the skin kept in the basement freezers and the new product for burns: Dermacell.

 

“Roxy, you must be completely delusional. What you’re requesting is completely ridiculous, maybe even crazy.”

Roxy huffed, blowing her usually perfectly coiffed hair off of her forehead. She was very flushed as if she had a fever, and had completely neglected her makeup today. Roxy looked positively haggard as she stood in front of him, with her slouching posture and frown lines set deep into her face.

 

“Doc, I’m completely serious. Why else would I be here? Have I ever asked you for anything before?”

Her voice cracked, eyes snapping fiercely.

Ah, yes. Scratch only saw that expression on Roxy’s face when things were incredibly important to her. Perhaps he should listen to her, shouldn’t he? After all, it was only polite.   
Stranger things had been requested of him before.

 

“No, but this is an awfully big problem you seem to have. Why not just bring your patient to the hospital?”

He smirked a bit, bringing his hand up under his chin to stare at her. She scowled, one hand clenching her scrubs.

 

“You know exactly why.” She snapped, huffing. 

 

“We take all sorts of patients at the hospital.”

 

“Scratch, don’t fucking test me, okay? I’ve slept three hours in two days, alright? This is no time for your damn snark.”

 

Doc felt his own mouth turn down from its usual calm smile. He didn’t exactly tolerate cursing in his office, but then again, this was a sign that Roxy was completely serious. 

 

“Alright, fine. Explain.”

 

Roxy shook her head angrily, plopping herself down in the plush chair in front of Scratch’s desk. He tsked at the way her nails dug into the material, nearly ripping it.

“Okay, for one, this patient has no way to pay anyone, and I’m simply doing this out of the kindness of my heart. The person is very important to my daughter and a friend’s son.”

“Well, I hope you aren’t expecting this to be completely cost-free.”

 

“I know it’s gonna cost money okay? I’m buying all this shit myself and I don’t even know why.”

 

Scratch sighed, waving his hand to urge her on. “Yes, yes. Go on, please.” 

 

“Also, I think this person is a product of experiments.”

 

He raised his eyebrow in confusion, staring at her.

 

“Experiments? But there hasn’t been any human experimentation since the Briar mental hospital burnt down.”

 

“That’s exactly what I mean. I don’t know how, but this kid has stayed young after that happened. He lives in the same spot, for Christ’s sake. By live I mean nest. Yeah.”

 

Scratch sighed again, trying his best to picture this person in his head. A young man of nearly seventeen, with crow wings on his back, and an old doctor’s mask sewn to his face. He could fly. 

 

“Roxy, I don’t see any reason to believe you. None at all.”

 

At this point Roxy stood up, a crazed look in her eye as she did so. 

 

“Okay. You want me to show you, Scratch? The kid’s living in my basement. He’s there right now, waiting on treatment. C’mon, I’ll drive you.” 

She stared at him with her lips in a hard line, completely serious, hands tapping impatiently on the mahogany of his desk. He looked down at her rapidly tapping fingernail, the popping vein in her wrist a tell tale sign that this woman was angry. 

The doctor was thoroughly confused. 

Roxy was usually so level-headed, having only begun this behavior today, when she had asked her colleagues for help on this certain project of hers.

 

“Roxy,” he said, keeping his voice low, “you’re completely serious about this, aren’t you?”

 

She slapped one hand over her face dramatically, dragging it down to make her cheeks sag with the pressure of her hand.

 

“I’ve told you this a million times today and only now you take me seriously?”

 

He didn’t know what to think.

Should she believe Roxy and actually take a look at this person himself, or completely dismiss the whole thing as something completely crazy?

 

Doc Scratch was a polite man, and didn’t tend to shun other’s beliefs, and this being so, he decided to humour Roxy.

If the person she described was there; great, it might actually be beneficial to his studies and it would help the person.

If not, then the efforts would be all for nothing.

 

Despite all this, Scratch had had more odd things requested of him.

 

He sighed, bringing out a notepad and a pen. He brushed his bangs away from his forehead, which had oddly become loose from their usual slicked-back style. He chalked it up to his own excitement about the whole ordeal.

“Alright Roxy. I expect to supervise this, you know.”

“Yeah I know. Your creepy science and all.”

“It isn’t creepy. Now, we need to schedule a time for the surgery…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I know, but he I wanted to get the update to you guys about how the permission was gonna be granted, all that jazz. Plus, I just like Doc Scratch, idk.
> 
> The actual fixing of Dave should start in the next few chapters.  
> Be patient with me!! I'm studying up on skin graft surgery and it's really gross, okay.
> 
> Thank you for the feedback, guys!!!!!


	19. Wake

Dave doesn’t remember any of the surgery, like Roxy said he wouldn’t, but he doesn’t remember much of anything when he finally wakes up from the anesthesia they had given him before the operation had taken place.

 

He only knows that his head is spinning, and the room he’s in is very white and sterile-smelling, the scent of the cleaning supplies so familiar he thinks he is probably about to cry. He doesn’t register the fact that he’s laying flat on his back for once, and that a weight that had been on his shoulders is almost completely lifted, something he will probably deeply regret later.

Soon he tries to speak, forgetting his embarassment about his horrible voice, swinging a hand out for something, anything, to hold on to.

 

He doesn’t like the pulling feeling from the IV in his arm, and soon someone is running into the room, all white and also sterile-smelling, strong hands securing his arms to the bed in an almost gentle manner. Despite this, Dave feels panic rise up in his chest, and he lets out an inebriated moan of fear as the unknown person presses two fingers to his wrist in a gesture that would be comforting, but something screams in the back of his mind _doctor_ and he wishes he could move enough to shove the person away and draw his wings around him.

 

His wings.

His wings, why aren’t they moving?

 

 

He struggles to move them, only succeeding in wiggling them in short movements that don’t feel like usual _at all._ He whimpers, and an incredibly calm voice breaks his panicked mind, filling the room warmly.

 

“Careful, Dave. Don’t want to open up the wounds, do you?”

 

Wounds?

 

Ah yes, that’s right. He settles a bit, registering a slight stinging pain in the side of his face, and even less of a pain on his back. He looks up at the person, vision blurry, but more clear than he remembers.It makes him feel even more confused than before. His hands feel very stiff, and he peers down at them in curiosity.

 

They’re bound tightly, but not too tightly, and it’s very hard to move them. He attempts to wiggle his index finger, only to have the gentle man lay his hand upon Dave’s own.

 

“None of that quite yet. We need you to be very still, David.”

 

 

_David._

The sound of his full name makes him want to thrash his head back and forth, and he feels the panic rise back up in his chest, like bubbles. He groans again, his head lolling to the right to peer up at the man again.

 

He’s very tall, and wearing the white doctor’s coat that makes Dave very nervous every time he sees one. Dave can’t quite make out the soft features on the man’s face quite yet, but doesn’t find himself caring too much. He’s feeling very very tired again, and his eyes are drooping.

 

The gentle hands tilt his head back upright in a straight position, and his voice is so very soft.

 

“Sleep for awhile, David. You’ll feel better in a few hours.”

 

Dave isn’t really in the position to argue, and can’t really think of a reason to stay awake anyway. So, he obeys, shutting his eyes completely and drifting away into a blank, dreamless sleep.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

The next time he wakes he spots Rose, and he squints at the brightness of the room. The white of the walls and the flourescent lights are almost too much on his newly-exposed eyes, and he blinks hard.

 

Rose is reading a small blue book with white scribblings on the front, and he immediately thinks of John at the shade of blue on the cover. He misses him so much when he thinks about the boy in that insant, and only wishes he could press his cheek to John’s again in this moment.

It would be a comfort, but Rose is here, and that is almost good enough, even if they’ve only talked once or twice. He tries to move his arm, but remembers the gentle man’s words from the first time he woke up. Instead he loudly clears his throat, staying as still as he could as he looked over at Rose.

 

She looks up as soon as the noise hits the air, and her perfectly lipsticked lips smile in a way that one could only really describe as smooth, as it spreads across her white face like sugar syrup. Her eyes are darting around, eyelashes splaying out like the legs of spiders.

 

 

“Dave, you’re awake. How do you feel?”

 

 

He nods at the first statement, then has to think about the rest. _Does_ he feel alright?

 

 

Of course he’s definitely in pain, but that was to be expected of newly grafted skin and the bindings that followed. His fingers and face hurt more than anything else on his body, and any movement of his exposed face burns more than a little. It feels stiff, and he doesn’t exactly like it.

 

He knows now that they’ve definitely removed part of his wings, seeing as if they were their original size, they’d be knocking over the IV stand and the small table of tools on the opposite side of the bed. They’re tucked neatly against his back, and he was pleased to find that the roots didn’t even hurt. Only his spine stung and ached a bit.

 

So, he figured he was feeling fine for someone who had recently gotten full-thickness grafts, in Roxy’s words before the surgery began.

 

He lifts one shoulder up and back down in a quick shrug to avoid much movement. He found his throat was a little sore, but Roxy had said that that would be normal afterwards. He wasn’t sure why it would be considered normal, but questioning doctors wasn’t at the top of his list of interests. Besides, it made him more nervous than he would ever admit.

 

“Hm. That’s to be expected. Dave, you’re aware they removed the mask and part of your wings?”

 

 

No sugar-coating it with this one, was there? He’s slightly greatful for that though, seeing as he figured any visitors he had the next few days were either going to baby him or completely ignore him. Rose was definitely his neutral variable in this equation.

He nods, moving his shoulders around only slightly. It will take much, much getting used to the removal of sections of his wings, but he figures he will deal with it.

 

 

It was either this or lose them completely.

 

 

Rose nods, closing her book with a gentle _pap_ sound and looking up at Dave with a knowing smile. He doesn’t quite like it, but he’s found that Rose was a secretive person, always knowing something about someone that the person probably didn’t know himself.

 

 

“I’m surprised, Dave. You’re a lot younger-looking than I thought you’d be.”

 

 

Dave’s confused, tilting his head slightly in confusion. He forgets that his face is completely exposed, most likely voicing his confusion better than his movement, but that is also something he will have to get used to.

 

 

“I thought that the…damage would be much worse than what my mother described. You look almost normal, despite the—“

 

She doesn’t finish, only gesturing to the odd bandaging covering Dave’s cheeks and body. She clears her throat in a way that would be awkward for most, but is only delicate for Rose. Dave’s sure his cheeks would be aflame if they were in commission at the moment.

 

Instead he also clears his throat, albeit a little more roughly than Rose.

 

 

She smiles again, leaning forward and placing a hand onto the bed. He’s happy to recognize that twinkle that the Lalonde’s tended to get in Rose’s eye as she smiles with her teeth, fingers clenching the bedding.

 

 

“You’ll be happy to know that John’s coming?”

 

The mention of John’s name is enough to make Dave’s heart thump wildly in his (much lighter) chest, and he feels his bandaged fingers move to grip the sheets, only stopping himself at the last moment.

 

Rose lets out a little chuckle as she notices his small movement of enthusiasm before her smile falters a bit.

 

 

“His father’s coming too.”

 

 

 

Ah, so there was the exception to the happy news.

Dave felt his throat constrict a bit at the thought of the older Egbert coming to see him with John, almost positive it could only end badly.

 

After all, what do you say to someone who’d been _stalking_ your son for years?

 

 

Rose cleared her throat again and quickly smiled again, patting the uninjured part of his arm.

 

 

“I’m sure everything will be alright once my mother’s explained the situation. On another note, would you like to take a look at yourself? Your wounds won’t heal for much more time, but I assure you that your appearance is much less…” She trails off again and doesn’t finish her words, only looking at Dave with knowing eyes. He wishes he could whisper the word “ _terrifying.”_

He nods dumbly, watching as she leaned down to fish a small pocket mirror from her dark-colored purse. She holds it up for him, positioning it in front of his face and smiles with all of her teeth at him. It reminds him of Roxy, and he wishes he could smile back at her before looking into the mirror.

 

 

He turns to look at himself, blinking at the nearly unrecognizable face that was his reflection.

 

 

 

His lips were still as scarred as they had been inside of the mask, and he’s amazed that his teeth haven’t suffered much damage. They appear almost normal-looking, and just that fact is absolutely awe-inspiring in his mind.

 

His cheeks are disgusting in his opinion, covered in a gauzy material that nearly showed the healing tissue underneath, plastered across both cheeks. His nose almost looks the same, despite a filled in spot that had been rotting away previously.

 

 

His eyes nearly scare him with what color they were: a bright red he hadn’t seen in what felt like decades, surrounded by stark white lashes. The eyes blink back at him, horrible scars surrounding the bottom lid and the bruise-colored bags underneath.

 

Rose smiles again when he looks back at her, her eyes sparkling like particles of dust in a light shaft.

 

“So, what do you think?”

 

 

 

What does he think?

 

He thinks that he does not look himself, almost missing the cover the mask provided him with and the way he was shrouded by his wings. He feels his eyes should not be on display as they are, along with the scarred mess that were his lips.

 

He hasn’t seen the line of his jaw and chin in ages, and in this moment he recognizes someone he might’ve once knew in a past life, someone that wasn’t him in any way.

 

 

He can’t remember when he’d last seen his eyes blink back at him with intense emotion riddled deep in the unnaturally colored irises pooling before him.

 

 

He hasn’t seen his eyebrows, white like snow, clench inwards in an almost-angry line.

 

 

Despite that, he feels like himself, and in a way he _does_ look like himself. He feels his lips attempt to move upwards in a deformed shadow of a smile, and his chest feels as if an anvil was lifted up off of it. He turns to look at Rose, and clears his throat as well as he can. She waits as patiently as always, and he is very glad that this girl decided to watch him and John as closely as she did.

 

“I think it’s good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I apologize for the sudden "oh the surgeries over yay" but writing the actual surgery would've been a disgusting gory process that I didn't want to write and I'm pretty sure you don't want to read.
> 
>  
> 
> Updates are going to be slower for quite a while, it seems, but like I've said I'm going to try to update on the weekends.
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, but it seems I'm out of practice again???? I'm sorry, I'm trying. ;n;
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for the feedback, you guys, and thank you for your patience!!!


	20. Apology

The older Egbert honestly has no idea what he should feel, staring down at the thing – or should he say person? – that has been stalking he and his son for years.

Honestly, he thinks he should positively enraged and should probably bash in this kid’s newly-reconstructed face, but he can’t bring himself to be angry at all. 

 

Perhaps it’s pity, he thinks, as he looks down at the boy who lays pitifully in the hospital bed, in the furthest corner of the hospital that the infamous Doctor Scratch could put him in. The skin grafts, which are obviously newly applied, are stark red and almost-yellow against the nearly patchwork skin of the boy’s body. 

His face, obviously being patched together due to reconstructive surgery and more skin grafts, looks absolutely terrified as he stares up at the older Egbert, red eyes looking watery and so vulnerable without the mask he’d seen so often. 

His wings were cut down so much that he could barely see him, and maybe he’d mistake him for a regular teenager if it weren’t for the odd ruffling of the feathers when he looked down at the boy.

 

So, yes, he did feel pity, but he wasn’t sure that was quite it either.

 

His son was currently placed beside Dave, much too close for Dad’s liking, and holding onto Dave’s arm gingerly, one hand placed on top of the other as he looks from his father to Dave with a nervous expression on his young face. Young, but all-knowing. It unnerved Dad a bit, knowing that his son had been meeting this person without him knowing. Sure, he could’ve checked more often, but he hadn’t, so maybe it was his fault. 

Then again, he thought, noting the way John instinctively moved towards Dave when he ruffled his feathers, that might’ve not been a very good idea either.

After all, this boy had gotten the help he needed, and if it meant that he would stop stalking their house in the middle of the night, Dad was fine with that.

 

John cleared his throat, moving one hand away from Dave to pull at his father’s rolled up sleeve. His son’s eyes were clear but nervous, and Dad Egbert wondered why he looked at him that way. Quickly John glanced back at Dave, who had looked down, scarred lips pressed together in a thin line.

 

“Dad, this is Dave.” John said softly, smiling a little as he glanced back at Dave. Dave looked up at John, the corner of his mouth twitching upward once. 

 

The older Egbert suddenly felt very out of place, watching the two boys glance at each other like they didn’t even need to speak to communicate. He feels somewhat like a third wheel, and that makes him extremely uncomfortable.

“I know.” He replies, making sure to keep his eyes locked on Dave as he said it. His words were a little more clipped than they had needed to be, but he wasn’t really concerned with that at the moment.

 

Dave visibly swallowed, looking down again and lightly gripping the blanket below. John reached out one hand to stop him from gripping too hard.

“Remember your grafts.” He mumbled, and Dave let up immediately, letting his hand rest on the material.

 

“Um. You’ve met Dave, Dad?” His son looked up at him, a bit confused and more concerned than the older Egbert would’ve liked him to be. He looked as if he was afraid that his own father was going to hurt Dave. He eyed the way John curled towards Dave even though he was facing his father, trying not to grimace.

 

“Yes, once or twice.”

 

More like hundreds of times over the months, when he’d catch this winged creature peeking into their house with it terrifying claws and mask, looking very much like a predator seeking out its prey.

 

Oh yes, they’d met, and on multiple occasions.

 

He narrows his eyes at Dave and the boy looked so guilty that he couldn’t say much else. He glanced over at John and cleared his throat delicately before looking off to the side. John noticed, and when Dad glanced at him his son looked a little angry.

 

John’s jaw was clenched as if to keep in what he wanted to say. He squeezed the sleeve of Dave’s hospital gown as if holding his ground. 

Dad decided to say nothing about it and sat in a nearby chair, looking at Dave and his son with weary eyes.

 

What an odd pair they made.

 

A young boy, soon to reach his twelfth birthday, and a winged teenager with more scars than he could count and eyes that looked to have seen everything.

He sighed, removing his hat and running a hand through his just-beginning-to-grey hair, finding that for once he had nothing he could say. 

 

What would one say in this situation?

 

He couldn’t defend either one of the boys or even himself, due to the odd circumstances of the situation. He couldn’t be angry at the stalker in front of him or his son, who’d willingly let this stranger from what looked like hell into his life, even after Dad had told him time and time again never to talk to strangers—

 

“M’sorry.”

 

A scratchy, nearly pained voice fills the air, and he looks up to see the winged boy staring intently at him, eyebrows drawn in an arch. His mouth twisted like he was going to cry, but he looked entirely too stiff to do that. 

John is also staring at him with clear eyes, mouth drawn in a line as he squeezes the material of Dave’s hospital gown. He looks serene, like he was used to his sort of thing.

 

The older Egbert cleared his throat, tilting his head.

 

“Sorry?”

 

The boy nods, once, still staring directly into his eyes. His posture screams guilty and the boy looks so apologetic that the older Egbert is very confused for a moment, but only a moment. 

He understands immediately after, and finds himself nodding without realizing what he was doing.

 

His mouth is dry as he swallows, and the words bubble up of their own accord:

 

“You’re forgiven, my boy.”

 

The smile that follows is very unexpected, a withered thing that looks to be entirely out of place on Dave’s face, and so is the own turning up of his own lips as the two men stare at each other.

 

Dad notes, as he looks on when John smiles up at Dave and the blonde returns it, that it feels as if some weight was lifted off of his shoulders, while another is placed heavily in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agh. I'm really, really out of practice, and currently I'm trying to develop Dave's background as well as I can. I don't think I have too many chapters to write, but hopefully I can fit less angst and more fluff in before it ends. Sorry for the bad chapter!!!
> 
> Thank you guys so much for all the great feedback, as usual!! I'd smooch every single one of you if I could!!!


	21. Ordinary

The months pass, and Dave heals, slowly.

 

His body is covered in scars that he didn’t have before, but he doesn’t find himself caring much, looking at the way his face is finally close to normal and ugly talons don’t escape his fingers to rip everything he touches.

People don’t stare at him, like he expected. The nurses that come in sometimes take a quick glance at the bumpy graft scars on his hands, but never say anything. In fact, some actually smile at him and say a kind word or two before hurrying off to another patient.

They never notice his wings either, and with them being so small they are very easy to hide underneath his hospital gown. He likes to flex and expand them as much as he can, though, and marvel at the lack of pain in the area. 

That’s another thing he likes; no pain.

 

It’s a very unfamiliar sensation by having very little pain on his body. He’d been used to bone-searing pain that would keep him up for days. His body would tremble and shake from the pain, no matter how used to it he was. It had been all he’d known, and now it was so different.

He’d wake up and expect the hurting to begin like every single day of his former life and before, but now when he wakes up and waits for the pain to begin, it never comes, except for his surgery wounds healing beneath clean bandages. Clean bandages instead of a soiled patchwork cloth, and so much less pain that this was nothing compared to before.

 

Having no pain was a good different, definitely, and the good kind of different was something he’d come to like very, very much during these few months.

 

 

One factor being different is the endless line of visitors he has from the moment he wakes up to when he goes to sleep. He’d been used to solitude and loneliness, and now has enough company that he wishes he had a bit of time to himself nowadays.

 

His number one visitor is John, who will come running in from school most days, dropping his backpack and letting it skid across the tile as he tears his way over to Dave’s bed.

Dave absolutely adores the way John says his name with the brightest voice he’s ever heard in his life, and the way he smiles hard enough that it looks like it hurts.

 

He’ll scoot his chair as close to Dave’s bed as he can, and usually take his hand or arm, having no problems with the oddly-textured skin of Dave’s limbs. He only squeezes his hand, not hard enough to hurt, and begins to talk.

 

John talks more than anyone that Dave knows these days, and sometimes Dave wishes he could reply with a wall of sentences such as John uses. He opts to use John’s phone instead, typing with clumsy and inexperienced fingers to reply to John’s questions and experiences.

 

Often John will laugh at what Dave says, whether it was meant to be funny or not, and it’s the most beautiful sound Dave thinks he will ever hear. It’s loud and ringing here in the hospital, John not holding back at all.

 

Sure, he’d giggled the many times he and Dave had met at John’s window, but it had never been loud enough to be considered an actual laugh. 

 

In the bright lights and atmosphere of this hospital, it’s much different with John, and Dave doesn’t feel those horrible dark feelings well up in his chest when he notices how John’s eyelashes sweep his cheeks or the way his sky-like eyes light up when Dave agrees with him.

 

No, now he just listens with a quiet calm settling in his body that he had only known when he first met John. It’s a nice feeling.

John will sometimes let Dave run a stiff hand through his hair or gently touch his cheek, and he’ll smile while Dave does it. It’s not the sunny smile Dave is so used to, but is subdued somehow, like a dimmer switch on a lightbulb. He also looks a bit confused when Dave does it, but doesn’t say anything.

 

Dave is grateful when John doesn’t talk during those moments that he keeps locked away in his mind. He just likes the silence they can sit in together, comfortable and calm as Dave attempts to keep his mouth away from John’s younger, innocent one.

 

In a way, he feels as if he’s practicing self-control, and getting better at it everyday. He doesn’t think about taking John away. He thinks about coexisting with him, and that makes all the difference in his heart.

 

 

Rose visits almost just as often, but she doesn’t talk nearly as much as John does. Instead she will sit beside Dave on the bed, reading to him and drawing messy sketches of him. She smiles as she does so and opens her eyes wider than usual, as if to take in every detail of Dave’s new appearance. 

When she shows him the sketches, he is happy to notice that he doesn’t look nearly as grave as he did before the surgery.

 

Roxy accompanies Rose on these visits, but doesn’t stay long, due to other patients needing her assistance in the hospital. When she does visit him, she smiles broadly at him everytime with a dark-lipped smile that’s pleasant and almost motherly.

She’ll tell Dave not to stretch his grafts too much and to stay as still as he can handle. Of course, he doesn’t listen as well as he should, but he always nods and tries to smile at her motherly concern.   
Smiling was still very new, especially with his face still healing, so he opts to raise the left corner of his mouth in somewhat of a smirk instead. Roxy loves it, laughing out with her resonant voice before returning to work.  
Rose will always smile and chuckle a bit at her mother’s concern.

“She just worries you know.”

Dave smirks and nods, knowing fully well how much she does.

 

“You’re somewhat of a second kid, in her eyes.”

 

 

John’s father will very rarely visit, but he does anyway, in short intervals.

Mostly it’s to deliver things, such as a note from John or a drawing from Rose. Sometimes he brings a plate of cupcakes when John is visiting and John will wrinkle his nose when Dave bites into one. He loves the cute downturn of his mouth when he does, and notices that John’s father will laugh quietly into his hand.

 

He doesn’t often see the older Egbert’s smile, though. When he visits alone and without anything to deliver, he’ll sit in the chair farthest from Dave, not quite looking at him or talking.

He doesn’t look like the father that John had lived with his whole life.  
He looked almost…old, honestly. Worried and going more and more grey each time Dave sees him. He knows it’s mostly his fault, and finds himself apologizing every time he visits.  
John’s father will only shake his head and look up at Dave. 

Dave isn’t sure if he’s completely forgives him yet, but he won’t hurry the issue in any way at all.

 

 

Doc Scratch comes everyday to check his grafts and the way things are healing up. He’s a very cheerful man, polite and sometimes sarcastic enough to make Dave almost laugh.   
He says that Dave is doing almost perfect, and that he should be able to walk around very soon.

 

Scratch has also been clearing up a bit of Dave’s confusion about himself.

 

Dave has no recollection of the old mental hospital, but Scratch does, and often talks about it to Dave. It confuses him greatly, seeing as the man almost constantly suggests that Dave had actually lived there at some point, regardless of what Dave thinks or not.

Frankly, Dave thinks it’s impossible, seeing how the hospital had burned down in the 1900’s and Dave himself couldn’t be much more than sixteen in appearance. Doc had said so himself.

If he indeed had lived in the hospital for a spell, then how was he alive, and how had he lived the way he had for so long? 

It was ridiculous and impossible, really, but Scratch was sure that Dave had lived in the hospital before the fire had happened.   
He showed Dave pictures of the hospital sometimes and Dave finds himself getting the same headaches he’d get when he tried to remember things, and it bothers him.

 

He’ll look at the patients and the building, and all of a sudden this migraine will build itself up in his temples, enough so that he’ll have to cover his eyes from the lights that suddenly become blinding, and the typed print that squiggles on the page.

Scratch will apologize when he gets these headaches, although it isnt his fault. Dave wishes he could reassure him somehow that he’ll be alright, but his voice wasn’t willing to work most days when the Doc came around.

 

 

So, in all, besides the confusing veil surrounding his memories, Dave felt lighter.

The weight that had settled on him when he had met John was nearly gone, and he didn’t think about the endless darkness that followed the idea of death. He didn’t think of his nest as a comfort anymore, and had really almost forgotten about it. He forgot how it felt to feel blood plopping from his wings and onto the ground in hard, painful drips.

 

Now Dave thought about when he’d get out of the hospital, and how John talked constantly and about Rose’s secrective smiles. He thought about life instead of death. Life beginning and sciences and media.

 

In a way, Dave felt as if he was slowly beginning to live. 

 

He’s gotten to hold a baby rabbit, thanks to Rose, and had gotten the first kiss he could ever remember; a cheek kiss as a joke from John. He coughed down some sherry Roxy had given to him in a toast to his health. (He had found it a bit ironic, in a sense.)  
He listens to music and watches romantic comedies and laughs at things he thinks are genuinely funny.   
He likes looking at magazines and talking to people and watching leaves fall from the tree beside his window.

 

To anyone else, he thinks they would consider his newfound interests very ordinary and mundane, but he sees it differently.  
It’s all new and so good, and it’s something he could happily get used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liked writing this chapter very much. Happy Dave is the best Dave, in my opinion.


	22. Truths

Just when Dave seems finally at peace, nothing makes sense anymore.

 

 

He’s taken to reading the books that Doc has left on his side table, large books that have no pictures or words on the covers.

 

Books that talk about medical mysteries and time-defying children or rapidly aging children.

Dave doesn’t know what to think about the books, only knowing that this was Doc’s way of having Dave try to discover more about himself. It doesn’t make much sense to him though, seeing as the scientific aspects of the medical anomalies don’t make much sense to him.

 

Sure, it’s very interesting, but it scares him as well.

 

 

Truthfully, he’s found that he doesn’t exactly _want_ to find out why he’s lived so long or why he went through the situation that had gone on months ago. He’s happy, and he’d like to stay that way. He’d rather listen to Rose’s cryptic and biting stories and John’s tinkling laughter than to find out his true age.

 

Right now he calls himself sixteen, for the more curious nurses. He opts not to speak, and holds up his hands at them with a sheepish smile, showing on his fingers how “old” he is.

They figure that he’s a newly mute patient at the hospital, although on a very prolonged stay, and he sticks to the story without protest.

 

He can’t exactly tell the truth.

 

Telling the truth is proving to be harder and harder lately, no matter how much he wants to give people the correct facts.

The truth actually was that he didn’t even know much about himself, other than what had happened before he had made his way to this new place.

He wishes he could answer Doc and John’s questions as easily as they’re fired at him, but he can’t.

 

 

“Dave, how old are you?” John asks one day, laying stomach-down on Dave’s bed. He’s getting bigger lately, his gangly legs growing spindly and long as he shoots up in height, so that Dave has to scoot over to where he’s nearly off of the bed. His voice cracks with the strain of puberty with every sentence, and he’s finally growing into his huge teeth.

 

By most sterotypes, John would be considered typical nerd, but Dave thinks that he only gets more and more beautiful every time he lays eyes on him.

 

Dave, in reply, shrugs, looking down at the book he held in his lap. It was something about neurological something or other, he wasn’t sure. John was here, so he couldn’t really be concerned with other things at the moment.

 

 

John blows air out of his mouth in a puffy sigh. His bangs blow off of his forehead and almost stick up with the rest of his hair. Dave instinctively reaches out to smooth them down while John whines:

 

“Well, how can you not know? _Everyone_ should know how old they are.”

 

_Apparently not everyone_ , Dave thinks, offering another shrug.

 

John sighs loudly, nearly rolling over onto Dave’s lap as he does so. His long arm flops out clumsily and nearly knocks Dave’s book from his knees. He squeaks out an apology before sitting up in a nearly-impossible twist of limbs and torso, looking up at Dave.

 

Even though his body may be growing, Dave has a feeling that John’s eyes will never grow much older than they are now. In the years he’s known the boy they’ve always been the same clear, sky-like colour that never wavers from their childlike innocence.

Dave is secretly glad for that, and wonders if he should tell John.

 

He smirks as he remembers the last time he’d said something about John’s eyes, something about the children’s movie, Bambi. John had stammered out something and clapped a hand over his eyes in embarassment, leaving Dave to laugh fondly at the motion.

 

He’d pulled John’s hand away from his eyes and smiled, shaking his head. He didn’t think about how familiar smiling felt anymore, and he remembered his cheeks aching a lot around John.

 

 

They weren’t aching now. In fact, he felt a lot more tense than he had been in a long time under John’s gaze. It was so expectant and hopeful, like Dave had every answer in the world to everything weird and abnormal.

 

Dave didn’t hate it, but he didn’t like it either. It made him feel horribly out of place.

 

 

Swiping the pad of paper and pen he’d set on his bedside table into his lap, he scribbled away, trying to get John’s mind off—well, whatever he was thinking.

 

 

_“How old are you now?”_

“Jeez, Dave! You should know this by now. I’m twelve.”

 

 

Of course Dave had known. He knew John’s birthday to the very hour and minute, but of course he couldn’t say that.

 

(Another truth he couldn’t give to John.)

 

 

Dave only nods before scratching down: _“You’re gettin old.”_

John squawks in defiance, pawing at Dave’s now-healed hands as Dave chokes out his wheezy laugh, batting John’s smaller hands away. He wants to grab onto them and hold them.

 

“You’re probably the oldest here, so you shhh!”

 

He grins at Dave, face entirely too close to Dave’s to be exactly comfortable. Dave can only think of how old he might really be, and how young John is.

Too young, and it wasn’t really fair.

 

 

He only smiles and gives a little playful shove to John’s shoulder as John continues laughing and telling Dave that he’s similar to “an old man” with his cracking voice.

 

 

After John stops giggling and babbling about age, he finally settles back beside Dave. He picks up the book in Dave’s lap before Dave can stop it, and he’s opened it to a page with a human brain on it. He wrinkles his nose as he looks up at Dave.

 

“How can you read this stuff? It’s gross.”

 

Dave shrugs for the third time during John’s visit, looking down at the pages.

 

“Is it interesting or something?”

 

Interesting, yes. Also disturbing. He suddenly felt like reaching over to slam the book shut and throwing it across the room, really.

 

 

Instead of doing so, he nods slowly, reaching over to turn the page to something less slimy. Luckily the next page is full of text, which seems to bore John. He shuts the book and looks up at Dave with the same clear look as earlier. Dave feels like he’s under a microscope.

 

“I guess I should get used to it. I wanna be a biologist.”

He looks almost sheepish as he says so, tracing his long index finger over the white cover of the book. _Piano fingers,_ Dave thinks, and has to clench the material of his pajama bottoms in one hand to keep himself from clutching that hand in his own.

 

Dave nods in the most approving way he can, offering a little smile to John when he looks back up at him. John smiles back, his hand going still on the book.

 

“That’s good, huh?”

 

Dave nods again, smiling a little wider.

 

John’s cheeks go a little pink as he smiles as wide as Dave’s ever seen, looking down at the blankets they’re seated on.  He takes a small breath before continuing to babble on like he so often had before.

 

“Well. I guess, I don’t have to get used to _this_ stuff, exactly. Biologists study life and all that stuff you know, which I think’s pretty interesting—“

 

It’s helpless, really, the way Dave lets a little inkling of self-control slip in that moment. John’s voice had been too sweet as he told Dave everything that popped into his head on that day, and the way he’d looked so pleased when Dave had approved of his wanting to be a biologist—

 

 

Without thinking about it, he leans across the few inches of space between the two boys, and presses the tiniest of kisses to John’s cheek. Immediately John’s talking ceases, and he looks over at Dave with nearly surprised eyes, but not quite. Dave expects his look of surprise to warp into an angry or disgusted one, but instead stays bright and a less shocked than expected.

 

Instead of getting angry, John gives only a little smile, his ears turning a bright scarlet colour. The silence ends when John turns to look back at the blankets and continues to talk.

 

 

Dave only stares at him before going back to listening to John’s rather endearing speech about career choices and biology. He finds his cheeks once again hurting from the smile that has found it’s way to his face.

 

 

Perhaps things were a little simpler, despite everything that was probably going to happen soon.

 

Maybe he could focus on moments like these, at least for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am seriously sorry about the quality of this chapter and the wait. I'm still without ways to write except on weekends, and last weekend I was entirely too busy to write.
> 
> Thank you for being so patient with me!! I know it's hard, and I'm sorry. :/
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for the feedback, guys, as always, and you're all so perfect!!!!!


	23. Flashback

_The ties on his wrist are extremely tight, and for some reason his body’s natural reaction is to pull and pull, struggling to free himself, until the rough material of his binds rub his wrists raw._

_He doesn’t find himself caring too much, though. He’s only worried about the tall, tall men in white, surgical masks stretched over their wrinkled faces as they stand over him. He tugs on the ties again, and  a sound escapes his mouth that sounds much too fresh to be his voice._

_The men in white don’t seem to hear him, and if they did it seemed as if they didn’t care. One turns around, and the sound of clinking metal fills the sharply-scented air. Dave feels an instinctual shiver run up his spine, and his body tells him to **thrashrungetaway**_ _but he’s bound to this cold bed and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to sit up and do as his instincts tell him._

_One man leans down extremely close to his face, gripping his cheeks in one of the cold, gloved hands.He stares and stares at Dave, right into his eyes, and Dave’s breath hitches in his throat._

_These eyes are cold and unfeeling, and he obviously doesn’t give a damn about how fucking **scared** Dave is at the moment. Eyes that are calculating and scientific, staring at Dave as though he were only some inanimate object in the room, not a human **(human?)** soul._

_Dave thinks of another pair of eyes, and oddly enough, they aren’t John’s._

_They’re gold coloured and warm, and Dave’s mind shouts the word **brother** at him.He’s confused, but the thought gives him an inkling of comfort as he’s forced to stare back into the man’s eyes, who aren’t warm and sun-like at all. They’re a steely grey, just like metal and syringes. _

_“Red.” The man mumbles to himself, then turns to scribble something on a notepad. Another man nods, lifting a syringe and squeezing it, sending liquid into the air for a moment before turning towards Dave._

_Confused as Dave is, he decides to listen to the frantic **screaming** in his brain when he sees the needle flashing under the cold lighting of the room. Needles equal pain and dark and always something new and painful when one would wake up, and it was never good. _

_He’s unaware where this notion came from, but something drops in his gut when the man draws closer, another nearby holding a long piece of cloth, Dave assumed for tying around his arm._

_It draws closer and closer to his goose-fleshed skin, and Dave feels that unfamiliar panic peak in his brain, and he absolutely **loses** it._

_Dave has never heard himself scream before, and hasn’t been able to, but now his voice rips out of his throat almost smoothing, releasing anguished, angry cries that fill the small room. One man curses as Dave flails his leg out, releasing it from it’s hold on the bed. His foot strikes another in the leg, and suddenly their cold faces aren’t so cold anymore._

_They’re angry, and Dave feels like he’s going to pay for it._

_Dave still screams as loud and as long as he possibly can, amazed by the young quality of his voice and how very powerful it is here, when he himself is so helpless in this situation._

**_“What’s wrong with him?”_ ** _One asks in a monotone voice, though his brow is clenched in a wrinkly mass across his brow. **”This patient’s usually so docile.”**_

****

****

_Patient?_

_Dave thrashes his head, looking around the room, and sure enough, doctor’s equiment surrounds him, although in a less orderly fashion than at Doc’s hospital._

_The tools glint cruelly in the dim blue light, piled together on small tables._

_Something tells Dave that they’ve been used many times before._

_His screaming has still not stopped, and he doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon, until a supposed doctor clamps his gloved hand over Dave’s mouth muffling the screams to a great degree. Dave attempts to open his mouth wider when they tie the cloth tightly around his upper arm, the needle edging closer and closer._

_He bites down on the dull rubber and flesh of the doctor’s hand just as the needle plunges into his skin, and the doctor’s yells fill his ears before everything goes completely black._

-

 

 

“That’s an odd dream.”

 

 

 

Dave nods, curling one knee to his chest as he looks down at the floor. His other leg dangles over the edge and onto the tile, much longer than he remembers. Perhaps he is growing after all.

 

Rose and John are here now, the girl sitting in her usual spot across from Dave, John nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with him.  He doesn’t think telling them about his rather terrifying dream was a very good idea, but jesus, he needed to tell _someone._

 

“Maybe you were reading too many of those creepy books or something.” John mumbles, his hand inching closer to Dave’s on the blanket. Dave notices Rose staring oddly at how close they are, but she doesn’t say anything. Dave knows she writes about them in her many journals, and he’s even found a picture of them holding hands somewhere on the marked-up pages, but he never says anything either.

They only look at each other with the same knowing stare that Dave has found somewhat comforting over the months.

 

 

John has changed only recently into a phase where he is always touching Dave, in some form, when he visits. Hand-holding, hugs, the occasional but brief kiss on the cheek. He’s always smiling at him too, and he finds himself smiling back with as much cheerfulness as he can muster.

 

 

Today, however, is a bit different. Dave hadn’t reacted well to John’s tackle-hug when he’d first woke up that morning, and Rose had noted that he was a bit pale. She’d pressed her small, cool hand and mentioned that he was a bit clammy.

 

This, of course, led Dave to tell them about the dream, writing as fast as he could on one of the hospital-issue notepads that sat in a drawer on his bedside table. Both had read it separately, Rose’s expression hard and older than her age; John reading while worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

 

Rose spoke now, clearing her throat delicately.

 

 

“Dave, hasn’t Scratch been asking you about a mental hospital?”

 

 

He looks sharply up, a bit surprised that she even knew about that at all. Not so surprised, though. Rose had her ways. Everyone knew that.

He nods and looks back down to the floor.

 

“Well. Perhaps that was a flashback of sorts?”

 

A flashback? Well why the hell would he have a flashback if he’d never seen the damn place before? Sure, he’d seen the ashy ruins that lay far in the woods, where his nest used to be, but he never found himself drawn or even _interested_ in the area.

Now everyone seemed to think he came from the place, even though it burned down over a hundred years ago.

 

 

_(It’s not too far-fetched, his mind tells him, but he would beat that thought with a stick until proven otherwise.)_

“But wouldn’t that make Dave like, a hundred or something?” John asks, squinting in confusion. His hand inches ever closer to Dave’s, but doesn’t touch.

 

“Yes, but I suppose something happened to preserve his age, if he was indeed a patient at the hospital.” Rose glances at Dave, and he almost rolls his eyes at her.

 

John wrinkles his nose and looks at Dave. “Weird. But anyway. Are you feeling better?”

 

 

Dave nods, even though the clenching in his stomach isn’t exactly gone. He decides to ignore it though, and closes the distance between he and John’s hand. He threads their fingers together and squeezes before glancing over at Rose again.

 

One eyebrow is perfectly arched, a small smirk lifting the corner of her lips up. Dave finds himself a bit annoyed by the expression, but decides to ignore that too. John squeezes his hand back and picks up one of the “creepy” books with his other hand.

 

Rose only looks down into her journal and seems to be drawing, the pencil sliding across the pages and filling the silence with a comfortable _scritch_ noise as she draws. For once Dave doesn’t mind the silence, and finds himself comfortable here, holding the object of his affection’s hand and watching this odd girl draw a picture of them.

 

Rose looks up after a moment, smirk ever-present on her pale face. She seems to be supressing a smile, but finally lets it stretch across her face. Dave thought she looked like Roxy, but decided not to voice his opinion.

 

 

_“Don’t let his father see you.”_ She whispers quietly, grinning and going back to her sketch. John doesn’t notice, and points out a picture of another brain in the book.

 

Dave nods, and lets the dream slip back into his mind.

 

These people are much more important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, guys, I'm sorry. I feel like my writing is getting worse and worse as we near the end. I'm also really really really sorry for the lack of updates, but it's very hard to plan everything out. ;_;
> 
> Sorry for this chapter, oh my god.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, once again, thank you all for the great and awesome feedback!!!!!!!!! It keeps me going.


	24. Arms

"Its called cyrogenics!"

  
  


Dave raises an eyebrow at the phrase, confused at the excited but matter-of-fact man in front of him. Doc Scratch's usually perfectly oiled hair was falling into his eyes, which were wide and green and absolutely sparkling. Roxy sits on the edge of Dave's bed and looks on as the Doctor smiles triumphantly at Dave. She looks very skeptical, and bored.

 

In inquiry, Dave tilts his head a bit, and Doc is eager to explain.

  
  
  


"It's when people are frozen for an indefinite amount of time and then thawed years in the future."

  
  


Roxy scoffs and drums her fingers on her leg as the Doc goes on to explain further, talking animatedly about the process. He glances over at her from time to time, at which she nods and smiles as if she believes him. As soon as he looks away she's back to rolling her eyes and keeping her jaw set tightly in her avid skepticism of what the Doctor was saying.

Honestly, Dave could understand why she was so quick to doubt these "cyrogenics." Frankly, it sounded pretty damn ridiculous. There was the time of when the invention was created to consider, and if people survived the process or not. Dave knew better than anyone else that when something was frozen, it died. He'd seen what felt like endless winters over the years, and he'd watched many numbers of things, human and plant, die due to extreme cold.

  
  


From what he could gather, the Doctor was suggesting that Dave had been frozen at some point, presumably in the 1920's, and had been thawed out sometime near the present. During that time, it seemed he hadn't grown or had even aged at all, and that in itself was absolutely ridiculous.

 

In no time Dave was shaking his head, holding up his hand to stop Doc's

rambling.

  
  


"What is it?" the Doctor asks, shoving his palm over his hair to smooth the pale mass down.

  
  


"He knows it's ridiculous, Scratch," Roxy is quick to answer for him. "it's a stupid idea."

  
  


"How so?"

 

"Was that shit even _invented_ back then? I mean, hell, they didn't even sterilize their tools when they operated, did they?"

 

Doc blinks, opening his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. He looks over at Dave, who nods in agreement.

 

"Well, I...I don't see any other option, then."

  
  


Dave wishes he could speak to question the doctor further, but he's left only clearing his throat to croak out a "What?"

 

Scratch looks up at him in surprise and also clears his throat. His calm demeanor seems to have completely dissappaited at this point, and he looks almost frustrated with Dave's question.

 

"Explain?" Dave asks, holding a scarred hand to his throat. He can feel the jagged scars brushing against the delicate skin.

  
  
  


"Well. I've considered everything that could've preserved your age and your..." His eyes flit to the graft scars on Dave's cheeks, and he swallows. "...condition, everything from mummification to freezing the nervous system and brain."

 

Dave nods and glances over at a tired-looking Roxy. He has a feeling that she had taken a part in these research excursions, from the dark bags that are settled under her eyes, but he won't ask.

  
  
  


"There's nothing that fits from that time period."

 

Roxy sighs and hoists one leg up onto Dave's bed, letting her worn nurse's shoe dangle from her foot, and sighs.

 

"Scratch, I know you're so dead-set on Dave here being from that hospital, but there's no way of really being sure."

 

"But we have _records_ , Ms. Lalonde."

 

"Records, yeah, sure, but there could've been a million Daves in that hospital. It isn't exactly an uncommon name."

 

Scratch glances at Dave in a way that makes him uncomfortable, something searching and cloudy in his lime-colored eyes, and Dave looks away as the eyes seemingly try to bore into him.

  
  


"Dave, the dreams?"

  
  


The dreams. The dreams told Dave a lot but at the same time told him nothing.

 

They were nearly all the same; Dave being shoved down on a gurney that squeaked and rattled, needles stabbing into his back, gloved hands covering his mouth. They all screamed hospital, and the screams and words he heard in the dreams weren't always his either.

 

Still, despite all this, they lacked the detail needed to confirm Dave's standing at the hospital, and they might have not even been memories. Not once had he ever seen a number or certain clothing that pertained to the 1920's, and the golden eyes he saw in the dreams regularly never had claimed a name, face, or voice.

Yes, the dreams were there, but weren't a solid point in the argument.

  
  


"The dreams explain it all, don't they?"

  
  


Hesitating, Dave slowly shakes his head, thumbing the small fuzzies on the edges of the afghan Rose had knitted for him. It was a comfort now, and he stared at the intricate designs knitted into the small blanket. Dave didn't want to think about this; couldn't they just leave the matter alone? Did it matter where he came from?

 

His head is screaming _Yes_ at him, but his head could fuck right off. Dave didn't want to be some medical anomaly people would covet and study for the rest of his life; he just wanted to live.

Of course, finding out who the brotherly figure in his dreams was would be nice, and maybe finding out his last name and birthday. However, that could all be found out at a  later date, along with his stupid origin and why he was alive. Living and interaction was more important than medical science and the like.

When he looks up the Doc is looking more dejected than before, his pale lips pressed together.

 

Dave feels like apologizing, but then again, he doesn't.

  
  


"Doc," Roxy sighs, pushing herself up off of Dave's bed. "I think we should take a break from Dave's situation."

 

Scratch looks at her sharply with a furrowed brow, stress lines threatening to wrinkle in the corners of his mouth.

  
  


"A break? Wh--"

 

"I'm moving Dave out of the hospital and into my house, with Rose and I. That'll be a lot to adjust to, right Dave?"

  
  


She looks down at him, and her odd, pink eyes looks solid, like the pink peppermint-flavored medicine she sometimes make him drink. They're thick and looking for agreement, and Dave complies, nodding his head up-and-down like a puppet. He doesn't remember ever talking to Roxy about moving, but he didn't exactly resent the idea. Living with the Lalondes would take some getting used to, but not bad. No, not bad at all.

 

"See? He needs a break, too."

 

Doc doesn't reply, only pursing his lips childishly and looking down at Dave. Dave in return avoids the doctor's eyes, instead looking down at the afghan again.

 

"...Fine. But we aren't dropping this, Roxy."

 

  
"Of course not."

 

  
She looks down at Dave, mouthing _I'll explain this later_ , and tugs on her forgotten shoe. Scratch sighs softly and successfully smooths his messy hair back down, straightening his posture.

  
  


"Dave?"

 

Dave looks up at Scratch, raising his eyebrows.

 

"We'll continue this later, yes?"

  
  


He doesn't wait for Dave to answer and turns to walk from the room, strolling out at a forced-leisurely pace. Dave doesn't miss the clenching of the doctor's jaw as he exits.

 

Roxy looks at Dave and smiles in an almost-motherly fashion, looking even more tired than before.

 

"It'll be alright."

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


John comes when Dave is sleeping that evening, having only to compliment the front-desk attendant to sneak past, who'd smiled fondly and called him cute. (He wasn't cute, he was a manly and handsome twelve-year old, thank you very much!)

  
  


Now he sits in the hard chair next to Dave's bed, watching but not watching the older (much older) boy sleep.

  
  


He looks like a bird when he's sleeping, his wings shifting under his hospital gown and his big hands plucking delicately at the rough sheets. He also makes noises similar to birds, low chirps and squeaks that inch their way out of his damaged throat.

They make John laugh sometimes, sometimes his laugh wakes up Dave, who's slowly open his red eyes and give John a small smile before sitting up.

  
  
  


Now, Dave is still asleep, his eyebrows clenched together in a way that reminds John of his dad. He feels the similar urge to reach out and press his thumb to the spot, willing the wrinkles away, but he won't do it. Dave always twitches or moves when John touche him, and Dave looks too tired to be woken up.

  
  


He looks old, John thinks, staring at the wrinkles that pull at Dave's unusually pretty face, despite the newly-healed scars. He looks old in a way John wishes he could be, old in the mind instead of the body.

He's been told too often that he needs to grow up more, especially since he was gonna be thirteen soon. Kids would wrinkle their noses at his bright laughter, his childish babble, kids that swung from the monkey bars with him only a summer ago. It made John a little sad sometimes, and when he had voiced his feelings about his newly-uppity classmates to Dave, he'd only typed on John's phone:

 

 

_Fuck them_

  
  
  


and grinned, showing off his newly-fixed and unfamiliar teeth to John, who'd laughed a bit and grinned back.

 

The memory makes John smile, and he finds himself staring at Dave's scarred hand as it dangles, lonely, over the edge of the bed. Without thinking, he takes the marred digits in his own, feeling the older boy's delicate pulse thrum through his hand.

 

He isn't sorry when Dave wakes up at his touch, but doesn't feel too great about waking him up, either. Dave's eyes stare at John's own, half-lidded and nearly blank. The rough hand squeezes John's, and they sit in silence, merely looking at each other.

 

John speaks first, keeping his voice quiet as he leans closer: "Hi Dave," and smiles, hoping Dave might offer up a smile of his own.

  
  
  


He doesn't.

  
  
  


Instead he moves closer to John in a rustle of blankets, propping himself up on his elbow so that his height partially matches John's. John doesn't like the straight line of his mouth, and wishes his lips might turn up.

His eyes look blank, like a dead person's and John doesn't like that either, but doesn't voice it. Instead he keeps his smile pasted on, smiling to make Dave smile. It isn't working.

 

"Are you okay?

 

A shake of the head.

 

"Bad dream again.”

  
  


It isn't a question; John knows about the dreams as well as Dave himself. He stares at the older boy, waiting for an answer, and after a space of a few seconds, Dave’s eyes seem to waver, and he nods, and without warning, kisses John.

  
  


It's brief and dry and nothing like the passion-filled locking of lips John has seen in his movies, and it's still, it's sudden. There was no prelude or romantic words, not even any hesitation.

  
  
  


Just Dave, kissing him.

  
  
  


When Dave pulls away he still looks blank as ever, albeit a little more shaky, and John isn't sure to be angry or happy or sad or _what._

  
  
  


So, he just looks at Dave, feeling his mouth twitch with words that wouldn't be voice and his eyes blinking like a doll's.

  
  
  


Dave had kissed him.

  
  
  


His friend, Dave. The bird-creature, Dave.

  
  
  


He's leaned forward and caught John's chapped lips with his own and _kissed_ him.

  
  
  


When Dave does it again he's still unresponsive and confused, letting the cold, impassive lips press against his own in desperation, and in that instant John gets it.

  
  


Dave watching him all this time and wanting to talking to him, Rose stating how desperate and fluttery Dave was every time John was around.

The gentle way he'd cradle John's hand in his own.

  
  


Dave might love him, and he thinks he's comfortable with that.

He's comfortable with this, with Dave.

  
  


And so, he waits until Dave pulls away, his unusual eyes wetter than normal and flushed on the white of his cheeks and nose.

  
  


He smiles, and Dave just might be crying.

 

When Dave pulls him in for the most bone-crushing hug John's ever received and sniffles into John's newly-widening shoulders, he's a little more than confused,

  
  


but comfortable,

  
  
and wraps his arms around Dave's bigger frame, closing his eyes as the older boy makes the sleeve of John's shirt wet, his bird-body shaking and shivering with his once-talons clutching fabric.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay nvm no epilogue idk what im doing bear with me here.


	25. Aurora

Creaky, comfortable houses and clasped hands.

This is where he belongs, despite any thought he might have saying otherwise.

 

His old eyes look out from his new face, and Dave knows for sure that he will be alright, and that he will be happy. He doesn't have a choice otherwise, especially with the people he has loved or has come to love surrounding him.

Everyone is growing as the months go by, along with himself, and the unanswered questions he no longer has any interest in fall back into the distance more and more. He is moving forward, as Rose had said to him many times over the passing time. 

 

"You've left those unpleasant things behind, be sure to remember that, Dave."

 

And he does remember it, especially on the days where John's smile never seems to leave his face, when Roxy drops kisses on his forehead like he was her own son, and when Rose squeezes his hand in a comforting fashion no one else could duplicate correctly. 

 

These things remain the same, but are still new, because as stated before, everyone is growing.

 

Roxy gains more wrinkles every year, but they aren't the unsightly ones he sees on the angry faces of the more bitter aging adults. They only make her prettier and livelier, crow's feet only accentuating the way her eyes light up with a lipsticked smile, the laugh lines near the corners of her mouth deepening, but not in an unsightly way. She doesn't grow any taller or shorter, but as Dave grows he stops seeing her as this tall, motherly figure and more as just  _Roxy_ , the funny woman who occasionally drank and was always quick to make a negative situation better.

 

If he had a mom at some point, she would be the perfect candidate. Hell, he nearly called her "Mom" a few times a day, but at the same time, she was a great friend. 

 

Rose only got a tiny bit taller than the first time he had saw her, but she held herself in a way that spoke of a regal background, despite her mother being the rather eccentric and frazzled Roxy. She continued to use black lipstick against the pale lips that were often turned up, but once again, it only made her look more mature than the rest of her peers rather than a ten-year old who was trying to be an adult too early. 

She was perfect in school but that was expected; all she did at home was read the dark books that lay dusty in the dark study and talk to John and Jade online. Of course, she did talk to Dave, but they didn't really need words to communicate after some time. She was like a sister in every way imaginable. She could make Dave stop in his tracks with just an all-knowing  _look_ , and he'd be set in another direction, away from any mischief he might have been about to commit.

 

The mischievous turn to his personality came from his own personal growth, although it seemed like a step down from the rigid maturity he kept up the beginning two years that he first knew Rose, Roxy, and John. He supposed it was from that, in all honesty. He was tired of being serious all the time, and then one day just seemed to turn to sarcastic, dry humor that he never knew he had in him. John taught him how to set up simple pranks involving buckets of water/confetti/whatever he decided to put in them, and he did things like that for awhile until Rose fell for it only three times.

He woke up with sharpie all over his face and small phallic-looking figures drawn onto his arms after the third time that Rose was drenched in a bucket of water, and he decided to stick to the dry humor after that.

 

Even John's dad had grown, although not much.

He didn't grow in the way of increased wrinkles or a hunched back from age, (he wasn't that old, Dave had to remind himself)  but he grew to accept Dave's presence much easier than he had before.

Dave didn't blame him in the slightest for wanting Dave to be as far away from his son as possible, considering what he had done to visit the boy before the changes, but he was very, very glad that he finally had let John visit and talk to him without much worry. The boy was fourteen by now, always wanting to visit his friends day after day, and Dave believed that John's dad knew he wasn't going to be the innocent little boy that he was before. So, he let Dave and John speak to each other and be around each other, although with a crouched caution and barrier Dave wasn't quite eager to breach.

 

And John.

John had grown, too, and of course Dave was going to notice every little change in him.

 

He was fourteen and had grown at least four inches in the past two years, his head now almost reaching Dave's own. He was probably going to be taller than Dave at some point, and Dave did not look forward to that day, even if John would probably always act like the mischievous kid he was even when he was considerably older. 

His voice cracked with quickly worsening puberty, he had a few pimples here and there, and the not-so-new-anymore braces left him speaking awkwardly, but Dave found it all entirely too gorgeous and amazing. It was John maturing and getting older, something Dave thought he'd probably never get to see or experience with John, but yet here he was, happily helping John along and offering advice whenever John asked.

He held his hand whenever John asked, returned and received cheek kisses that sometimes were a little too close to the corner of Dave's mouth to be platonic. John would always giggle nervously when such actions were initiated, most likely not thinking about the consequences or the differences in their ages, even if Dave didn't look all that much older than the younger boy.

It couldn't be helped at all, because no matter how John changed or what happened through the running course of time, Dave knew his feelings for this boy would probably never change. 

 

It was his constant in his ever-growing, ever-improving life that he had been pushed into so willingly and adapted to with ease.

 

 

-

 

 

"Hey Dave?" 

 

It's night, and they're laying in John's front lawn. It's a night similar to the one where Dave first visited John, when he left a feather. The grass is dewey and new in the dwindling spring, and Dave can almost smell summer coming. He turns to look at his companion, who has caught his attention.

John lays next to him, the moonlight reflecting down and onto his face, for once free of a smile. But he doesn't look sad, just thoughtful, especially when he blinks up at the nearly-full moon that hangs in the sky above him, eyes reflecting the image back almost perfectly.

 

Dave has memorized the spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and could probably point them out in the sparse light of the night.

 

"Yeah?" he replies, voice raspy.

 

"What made you stay? I mean, why didn't you go off somewhere else after you got better? I know you liked us, but you could probably go off and just do great stuff."

 

It was a good and bad question at the same time. Good, because from what his customers on the internet and in real life have said, the music and (admittedly awful) comics he created could actually get some attention, and make decent money. Dave could accept their offers, say goodbye to the people in this small town, and probably live somewhere bigger and live a life others would dub as "interesting."

It was a bad question, because he could never even think of leaving here, leaving these wonderful people that he had come to know and love over the years. They had helped him in so many more ways than one, made him an actual person instead of a shell with an obsession. They had loved him and kept him afloat, even though he had taken on more and more responsibilities lately, each step closer to adulthood with each passing day. 

He could've never left John. 

He probably couldn't even force himself to do so, he loved him that much, and John had helped him that much.

 

This boy with the striking blue eyes laying next to him had changed his life so drastically and so wonderfully; he'd taught him about human emotion, for God's sakes, and had helped him remove the deformities on his body that had only slowed him down during his life. 

John was his reason that he was here today, and he was so grateful that he was nearly speechless whenever he thought about it.

 

John, noticing Dave's rather thoughtful silence and staring, turned to look at him, half-smiling when Dave didn't look away from him.

 

"Dave? Gonna answer the question?"

 

"What was the question?"

 

 

John laughed, closing his eyes for a minute before looking back at Dave with bright blue eyes, at the moment the same color as the blue-black shade of the sky.

 

"Why did you stay?"

 

Dave could only smile at the question, and in the dark his hand found John's, the younger boy's digits nearly as long as his own as he entwined their fingers. John returned the gesture by squeezing Dave's hand, smile widening and showing the glow-in-the-dark rubber bands on his braces.

 

"Well," Dave said, still smiling, "I'd say it was you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.
> 
> It's over, I finished. I fiNISHed it and I'm also a little sad about that fact. I'm actually tearing up a little, shut up.
> 
> Anyway, some apologies are in order.
> 
> I'm sorry the ending took so long to be written, but the two manuscripts I'd written (slAVED OVER) for the end were tossed out on accident, and as the end of the year approaches I've been super busy with exam preparations and all that unpleasant school junk.  
> Excuses aside, I'm very, very sorry.
> 
> You guys are absolutely amazing for sticking with this all this time and reading, and for those that are actually finishing this, thank you so much. You're all fantastic troopers who kept me motivated throughout this whole endeavor.
> 
>  
> 
> Aaaaaaand, that's all I really have to say before I get too emotional/poetic. I do enough of that when I write, so there's no need for that.
> 
> Once again, all the thanks in the universe to everyone who has read this, and if you ever need anything at all, contact me on tumblr or even on here!!
> 
> Thank you!!!!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> This is depressing and I'm sorry.  
> But...I like it?
> 
> I'm fucked up oh god. 
> 
> If you want me to continue, feel free to comment/kudos and message me on my tumblr: cacophonia-the-ninth.tumblr.com
> 
> I'm sorry for any mistakes or typos.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Harlequin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2607590) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




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